Back to shape after the baby
By Anup Deb Nath

ONCE they have had their baby, many women start worrying about getting back into shape again. Traditional care in India cautions a woman against exercising too soon after the birth of the baby as the feeling is that the woman is too weak. Exercising apart, women are discouraged from walking around the house too much for a couple of months. In the West the attempt is to get back on your feet and into a regular pattern of life as soon as possible after the baby is born.

There is really no way of saying which way is correct or incorrect, but one thing is certain that giving birth to a baby is not like a disease where you have to rest. Unless you have had complications or problems in your pregnancy and delivery, it is best to treat it as a normal part of life and try to get back on your feet as fast as possible.

It is best to start with very gentle exercises and to remember not to try to expect great miracles overnight. It is but natural that during the first few months after the delivery you will feel more tired than you did earlier and, therefore, your expectations should also be more realistic. It is best to take your doctor’s approval before you start any exercise routine, though starting exercising once your baby is about three-four months old is about the ideal time. By this time you would have got more settled with the baby and also regained most of your lost stamina as well. The longer you put off exercising after the baby’s birth, the tougher it proves to be to lose all the extra weight you have gathered. It is best to check with your doctor before you begin exercising. The best time would be to start once the baby is three-four months’ old. The longer you delay returning to exercise, the tougher it can be and the longer it can take to come back to shape.

Remember that you will not have the stamina you had earlier, and try to begin your routine very gradually, slowly increasing the intensity, as you are able to cope.

You will feel less tired while exercising if you drink water before, during and after your exercise.

Drinking adequate water is especially important for breast feeding mothers as you lose more body fluids. So try to replenish all that our body is losing. To begin try to start with a brisk 15-minute walk three times a week.

Along side, add in abdominal sit-ups to strengthen your stomach area. A week later increase your walking time to 20 minutes and start body-toning exercises as well. These should include exercises for the hips, thighs, waist, bottom and upper body. Doing lightweight training three times a week is also a help.

By the third week of your exercise programme add in a 20-minute jog or 20 minutes of low-intensity aerobics. Continue with the body toning exercises and weight training. Increase the pace and time of your exercise, as your body becomes fitter and gets adapted to the regular workouts you have been doing. Remember, the aerobics will burn fat while the body-strengthening exercises will tone up your muscles.

Some women can develop abdominal muscle separation after the delivery. This will make the toning up of the abdomen area much more difficult. To check if you have this problem press your fingers into the area around the belly button as you do an abdominal crunch. If you can put in more than one or two fingers in between the muscles, then they have separated and you need to do slightly modified abdominal exercises to correct this problem. Place your feet bent at the knees like you do for a regular abdominal sit-up.

Instead of placing your hands behind your head, place them across your abdomen. Squeeze the muscles as you go up and contract the abdominal muscles. Lift just your head and not your shoulders as you do these lifts. If you find that you are not being able to squeeze your abdominal muscles with your arms well enough, you can tie up the stomach with a piece of an old sheet, keeping it pulled reasonably tight.

Try not to go on any crash diet while you are breast-feeding your baby, as your baby will need extra fat while you are nursing. While trying to get back into shape remember that it took your body a year to get this way and you should give it a little time to get back into shape again rather than expecting results overnight.

Try to aim for quality rather than quantity when you look at the exercises you are doing. Ten minutes of abdomen crunches done perfectly are far more beneficial than doing 30 minutes of crunches improperly.

This feature was published on September 26, 1999