Your prenatal and postpartum pelvic floor should not be ignored. Spending the time to strengthen your core and focus on your pelvic floor muscles will make birth and recovery much easier. This Gentle Pelvic Floor Strengthening workout can be done at home in your PJs. 

When most people find out that William was born after only five minutes of pushing, I get an up and down look of mixed shock and sympathy.

Then, when they find out that he was nine pounds and one ounce, their mouths drop open as a touch of horror gets added to the mix.

I know what they are thinking: “What did that do to you?”

No one has ever been brave enough to ask me that question.

You can read William’s birth story here.

You can read Zoey’s (our first) birth story here. 

The female body is truly an amazing design and my body, five months postpartum, is almost back to its normal self. And before you get to thinking that this post is how to lose the baby weight and be “back to yourself” again, it’s not. In full disclosure, I am below my pre-pregnancy weight due to muscle loss and that does not make me happy. I am missing my muscles, some ab definition, and my butt.

Ok, that’s a lie. I never really had a butt to begin with.

But you get my point.

I both ran and lifted while pregnant with William until I was 38 weeks. Yes my runs were slow, but I was still able to move for at least two or three miles before he dropped too low to make it comfortable.

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The one thing I did not focus on too much while William was growing was my core. My workout plans and running plans all incorporate lots of core stability training, but for whatever reason (maybe my history with HELLP Syndrome kept me tentative because that was not something I wanted to repeat), I shied away from core training with William.

On top of that, my hips started to feel literally disconnected around 25 weeks. If I twisted to walk in a different direction from a stop, or lingered a bit too long on one foot while walking, I could feel my hips pulling apart. One hip would do what I wanted it to and the other would adamantly refuse.

That hip was clearly invoking my favorite saying of, “You’re not the boss of me.”

While this is all well and good as the hormone relaxin did its job to prepare my body for birth, it was not comfortable. As a result of that, and my lack of core workouts, my pelvic floor suffered after William was born.

It is not often talked about, but a lot of women lose bladder control after having multiple children when they sneeze too forcefully or laugh too hard which means they will have consistently wet pants when their kids learn to talk and mispronounce completely normal words into inappropriate ones.

My issue was not the losing control part (which is completely fixable, by the way, so you can stop needing a change of clothes for both you and the kids), but rather the losing the strength of my pelvic floor and having a prolapsed bladder.

This wasn’t even something I knew could happen and I had no idea what was going on and how I was supposed to fix it.

At that point I would have rather had the peeing.

Through my frantic, “What is this?” my OB was so kind when I scheduled a four week postpartum checkup instead of waiting the full six.

Between pelvic floor issues and a touch of diastasis recti (Remember how William was 9 pounds and 22 inches?), I waited until I was eight weeks postpartum to start any type of intensive workouts and ten weeks before I attempted to run. In the interim, I focused on simple pelvic floor moves to strengthen my core, pelvic floor, and feel like I was actively helping my body to heal.

You can see my more detailed post on being four months postpartum here.

This Gentle Pelvic Floor Workout will not make you sweaty. It will not take very long. It will not even require you to change into workout clothes. It might even feel like you are not doing anything at all, but I can tell you that simply doing this routine 3-4 times a week while Zoey was going down for the night, or while the kids played in the living room next to me, has worked wonders.

Everything is back where it should be, my diastasis recti is almost healed, and I can walk and run without pain or a loose leg feeling. Take the time to focus on your core and pelvic floor before, during, and after pregnancy. Your body, and bladder, will thank you.

Gentle Pelvic Floor Strengthening

Complete 10 reps of each move in Set 1 for two rounds. Then move to set 2 and 3.

Set 1 – 2×10

• Pulses
• Deadbugs
• Glute Bridges

Set 2 – 2×10

• Knee Drop
• Twisted Curl
• Clamshells

Set 3 – 2×10

• Donkey Kicks
• Side Taps
• Plank Touches

Other core workouts you might like to try:

• Tabata Abs
• Core Stability Workout
• Cardio and Core Circuit Workout
• Core Burner Workout

These are the items that we love and have used every day with William since his birth. You can also check out my list of breastfeeding essentials here.

• Baby Bjorn Bouncer
• Bebe Au Lait Nursing Cover
• Ring Sling 
• High Absorbency Burp Cloths
• iPlay Baby Hats 
• Glider and Ottoman
• Play Mat
• Boppy 
• Bottle Drying Rack
• Freezer Meals