I’ve often been asked, what has surprised you about postpartum and most of the time, I have not had an answer. I always interpreted that question as what has surprised me about newborns. I wad around children all of my life and have worked with newborns and children. That part has not been that scary or surprising.
But then I realized, that’s not the entirety of the postpartum question. That question is really about the mother, otherwise the question would be how is it having a newborn or what surprises you about children.
Again, being a nurse who has worked in maternal health, not much about the physical aspects of pregnancy or the immediate postpartum have surprised me, with one exception. I really didn’t expect to physically feel fine but then get into the gym or do my own workout and feel so weak. To feel like I was strong and lifting heavy till shortly before delivery and then weeks and even months postpartum to feel weaker then when I was pregnant came as a shock. I had to wrap my head around the reality of it and the normalcy of it.
Every postpartum journey takes time, no matter how you deliver. I delivered via c-section, i.e. major abdominal surgery. I do believe the work I put in during pregnancy to be as healthy as I could be really did help me recover “quickly” I was up walking around the unit the next day and had very little pain within a couple of days. But this set me up to not be prepared for how I’d feel in the gym. I cannot complain because my recovery was very minimal pain, I just needed to remind myself that surgical recovery is normal.
Looking beyond that though, there are so many other factors that go into the well-being and recovery of a postpartum mom. If you are breastfeeding, the energy required to do so is significant! And like pregnancy, your body will nourish your baby first and you get what is left, this absolutely impacts recovery. Same goes for hydration. Aim for more like 12 glasses of water per day as opposed to the standard 8.
And no matter how hard you try, you will not be functioning on 100% capacity until your sleep is somewhat normal. If you are still in the stage of getting 4-6 hours of sleep, your muscles are not going to have the rest and recovery they need.
Some people view all of these reasons as why new mothers shouldn’t work out and some say working out is bad for breastfeeding. Neither of these are true, but what is true is that you need to nourish yourself, rest and relax and not just go hard at the gym every day. But movement and strength, even if it’s less than what you are used to, will continue to pay off for you (and your children) physically and mentally.