Postnatal Care: Effective Ways to Recover Smoothly

The first six weeks after you give birth is the critical recovery period where you will try to regain your strength, cleanse your womb, and get back into pre-pregnancy shape.

Some moms take months to recover after childbirth. Some others, however, can get back to their daily routine as early as 4 weeks after! What are their secrets?

We will tell you the key to speedy and smooth childbirth recovery at the end of this, but first, let’s go over what will largely contribute to it! To recover properly, you need to:

• Rest
• Follow a balanced diet
• Maintain proper hygiene
• Get rid of excess weight

Rest

This is a pretty obvious step, but one that is most frequently ignored by new mothers. A lot of new mothers want to keep their newborns with them at all times and want to take care of everything regarding them.

If you identify as this type, you would want to have everything in control, from recovering fast to ensuring the smooth development of your baby. However, there may be a need for better balance in the way you do things.

You might end up prioritising only your baby’s development and ignore your recovery progress completely.

Instead, what you should focus on is getting ample rest so that you can regain strength and energy to heal better. For a new, first-time mother it is not the easiest thing to do to loosen up and leave your baby to the hands of others. However, you do not have to be super rigid when it comes to basic baby care. Your newborn may seem fragile, but they are built to survive your beginner skills, even as new parents.

A lot of parents underestimate the difficulty of nursing a new baby, and that’s why many suffer and have no idea what to do in certain situations.

Under such circumstances, know that it is perfectly fine and even highly recommended to ask for help, whether from an experienced family member or a professional worker in a related line of work, like a confinement nanny.

Simply having a helping hand around the house can lift a huge burden off your shoulders. A confinement nanny is trained to assist new mothers like you in your recovery journey and make sure your newborn is well-taken care of.

You can also learn the proper way to care for your baby from them. With their presence, you can get sufficient rest to let your body rejuvenate!

Plan and follow a balanced diet

This should be planned way ahead before your delivery as you may realise later on that it is going to take a lot of work to go out and get the essential ingredients after you have given birth.

When creating a postpartum diet plan, make sure you are clear on what the main objective should be.

The main goal is to replenish your blood and energy so you can hasten the healing process. To pick what you can have for lunch and dinner, make sure your meals contain everything a new mom needs.

This means that your food should be categorised according to its nutrient groups so that you will meet your daily requirements of essential nutrients.

Incorporate foods that can help you heal and at the same time prevent issues like constipation and thirst, especially if you breastfeed.

If you want to have more variety in your dishes, you can look up confinement meals online. There are a lot of traditional and non-traditional dishes you can easily put together!

You can be more specific too, like searching up ‘easy desserts for new moms’, ‘confinement meals with simple steps’ or ‘confinement dishes with less than 5 ingredients’.

All of these can normally be put together easily in the kitchen with very little effort!

Several things you should take note of are avoiding spicy and oily foods and to stay away from foods with high sodium and sugar content. These foods can cause constipation and worsen water retention respectively. Be sure to stay hydrated by drinking 8 glasses of water each day. Drink more as you are more prone to thirst and dehydration from breastfeeding.

You should also consider the possibility of having either a low or abundant milk supply as both can cause different issues. Hence, be prepared with a list of meals that can ease your breastfeeding experience.

You May Also Read This: How Massage Helps With Your Postnatal Recovery

Maintain proper hygiene

Are you following certain confinement practices during your early postnatal period? If you do, you must have heard a famous notion that showering daily can bring you illnesses and diseases when you’re old and grey.

Not only has it not been proven to be true, but following this particular practice may do you more harm than good, especially in this humid country.

Not showering for days can cause oil and sweat to build up on your skin and hair, causing rashes, itching, and also dandruff.

If you still have worries, you can stick to a warm shower or even opt for an herbal bath.

For your C-section incision to heal properly, gently clean it once a day with soap and water. Pat dry with a fresh towel and daub on antibiotic ointment afterwards – talk to your doctor about whether you need something extra like gauze or should let the wound open up for some air too! Most importantly, keep the affected area clean and dry. This will prevent dirt from getting into the wound and causing further infection as your body would have a poorer constitution during this time.

Give yourself time by avoiding heavy lifting as much as possible; get an all-clear from your doctor before jumping back into any strenuous activity.

Get rid of excess weight

Losing your pregnancy weight is possibly one of the highly-anticipated post-birth transformations that new mothers look forward to.

Losing the excess water weight can ease your movement and help you recuperate. The good news is, this extra weight will gradually go away on its own.

Nevertheless, it would only be in your favour if you start working on it as soon as you are able to do so in order to see effective changes in your body sooner.

This is not to say that you should start exercising right away, especially considering the first step mentioned above is to rest sufficiently.

Only start with exercises when you feel well enough and start with simple ones like Kegels and walking. Walking can improve the body’s circulation, tone muscles, ease gas issues and constipation, and reduces feelings of depression. So break out those shoes for an invigorating jaunt to better health and wellness. Strictly no strenuous activities should be performed during this time. What can you do, then?

One viable option is to go for a massage instead. This way, you will not overexert your body and you can relax while healing and slimming down. Be sure to hire those who are certified and skilled to perform those post-pregnancy massages.

To be safe, you can consult a pre and postnatal massage agency for it (like PNSG).

After a post natal treatment session, the therapist will normally put on a binder for you to help shape and tone your body back to its pre-pregnancy state.

Going back to our first question on what is the key to a smooth postpartum recovery, the answer is consistency.

All of the things listed above should be done continuously throughout. For instance, if you’ve got a poor diet all the way throughout your pregnancy, you may actually be slowing down your own postnatal recovery. Thus, the healing process will take even longer due to related complications. Remember, your postnatal care is as crucial as your baby’s development progress!

That said, you can stop Googling “Post natal care Singapore” or even “post pregnancy care Singapore” now. Give us a call instead and we’ll help you cross out one of those things from the list and send a masseuse around to your place and help you relax today!