Tips for Comforting Your Postpartum Body After Giving Birth

You have finally put your pregnancy behind you and are officially a mother. Congratulations!

And now, here comes the postpartum stage where your top priority should be your recovery!

To help your body rest and recuperate, here are some of the things that you should be doing once you have given birth.

Rest — and Then Rest a Bit More

The journey to restoring your figure does not have to begin right after you deliver your baby.

Confinement is a time for you to rest as much as you need and can. You have to take good care of yourself during this period in order to rebuild your strength and body.

It may seem like time is slipping away from you while you are busy caring for your little one, but try to squeeze in some time for yourself to do nothing aside from resting. For instance, sleep when your baby sleeps to allow your body to heal.

It is best to let someone else take care of other responsibilities that do not revolve around your recovery and your newborn’s well-being.

This way, you would get to focus on nursing your baby and taking good care of yourself. If you are nursing, you can store your breast milk for your baby’s future needs so that you can rest while having someone else feed your little one.

When you’re resting, your body is able to focus on recovery, locating the areas that need more help to heal. If it seems very difficult to rest properly, a good way would be to regulate a routine with your baby’s feeding time. So, both your and your baby know when it is time to nurse, and when it is time to sleep, allowing you to rest more efficiently.

Seek Help

Of course, for some, resting is much easier said than done when there is so much to do. Regardless, it is extremely helpful for your postpartum recovery to seek help from others while letting your body rest and recuperate, especially since newborn care requires plenty of time and energy.

For a new mother, the challenges of taking care of yourself and your little one at the same time may not be easy for others to understand.

Therefore, do not feel guilty when you feel like you need extra helping hands. There is basically no time for you – and also, no energy – to handle your house chores and other additional responsibilities.

Babies are most vulnerable in their first month after birth as they might easily pick up infections. Therefore, having a hygienic and well-maintained environment is especially necessary with a newborn at home.

You can consider hiring a professional part-time maid or booking cleaning services. This way, you can remain focused on your baby and your needs while your home’s cleanliness is still taken care of.

A trusted platform normally lets you choose your own cleaner and even explore real reviews from their past clients. Through a convenient, hassle-free process on their official website, you can check the profiles of the part-time cleaners one by one.

All of the cleaners had previously worked as full-time housemaids in Singapore so they are particularly experienced in housekeeping duties and working with children and elderlies. They are highly independent and are able to perform tasks excellently without constant supervision.

Slowly Get Your Body Moving

As we said before, jumping back to your workout routine immediately after birth is not a great idea – especially if you are recovering from a C-section delivery.

If you feel well enough, it is still advisable for you to get a green light from your doctor. At this point, the most important thing to do is to give your body some time to heal before you return to your workout routine.

Of course, it does not mean you cannot move at all after childbirth. When you are ready to get back out there, you can start slowly. Low-impact exercises such as walking are a good start for you.

After you have started walking for several weeks, you can gradually add some upper-body stretching or postpartum body exercises into your routine. Upping the ante and going for yoga, pilates, and even strengthening exercises is a great way to encourage recovery. Exercise helps to tone the muscles, gives you an energy boost, gets the blood circulating well, and promotes better sleep at night.

Ensure Proper Nutrition

New mothers should not go on an extreme diet right after childbirth – not that it is recommended at other times as well, but at this point even more than ever, your body should not be put under such pressure.

In fact, try to not let your body weight become your source of stress as you adjust to your new life schedule. Eat healthy meals every day and stay nourished throughout your confinement.

A common dietary practice during pregnancy is to have perhaps five to six small meals spread throughout the day rather than have 2 or 3 big meals. The good news is, this practice is in fact a good, highly recommended meal plan that you can continue to follow anytime beyond just pregnancy. A good rule of thumb to follow is to have different organic foods in each of the rainbow colours every day. Of course, keeping yourself hydrated is essential for so many reasons!

Eat balanced meals, meals with ingredients that help with postpartum recovery like ginger, fish, garlic, beans, and whole grains. If you feel peckish between meals, some healthy snacks like fruits, yoghurt, and eggs can do wonders. Even the occasional chocolate is not off-limits.

And of course, you must make sure that you’re eating enough. Eat too little, and you’re not getting enough nutrition. Eat too much, and you’re burdening your body with excess food. The important thing is to listen to your body to gauge when you’re full and when you’re hungry.

If you are nursing, your body needs about 500 additional calories per day. Following a healthy diet that meets the recommended daily calorie intake for a breastfeeding mom will not only help to improve your breast milk supply but also boost your body’s recovery.

Breastfeed

You might wonder. Breastfeed? But isn’t that for the baby?

Well, yes, but not entirely. Nursing may seem like a straightforward task but do not be deceived by the connotation that it only serves purposes for the baby. Because by breastfeeding, not only are you supplying your baby with nutrients and antibodies, but you’re also allowing your uterus to contract, which indirectly helps with abdominal toning too. In addition, breastfeeding burns a lot of calories, roughly 300 to 600 per day, which aids in the loss of pregnancy weight gain. All these work hand in hand with postpartum recovery.

If you’re having difficulty breastfeeding, you can try massaging or using hot and cold compression to keep the flow going smoothly. Using a breast pump helps too, of course. Don’t forget to check out MumChecked for quality breast pump selection or any other quality baby products if those are the kind of breastfeeding assistance tools you need as well. 

You might also want to include more lactogenic ingredients in your daily meals. Don’t worry, you don’t have to look further for any ingredients you are probably not familiar with. Some of the lactation-boosting ingredients are probably already in your kitchen, like ginger, garlic, and of course – green papaya! Lastly, we cannot talk about breastfeeding without mentioning the one treatment that so many mothers swear by; breastfeeding massage therapy. Let’s get to it in the next one!

Divide Responsibilities with Your Spouse

This is just about the most important tip of all. Reach out for help. When offered, accept the help. Especially from the person closest to you; your spouse. Trust us, your husband is possibly hoping you would ask for help as well as they themselves might be unsure of what other things they can be of help with other than chores related to your newborn.

Communicate how you are feeling and what are things that you need help with the most. During this time, ‘mom guilt’ might be haunting you. You might feel like the chores split is not fair and you are burdening others, but splitting all the work 50-50 does not always mean it is fair to all parties involved. You have gone through a huge life event so it is only natural that you have to let your body rest a little bit longer and rely on other people to get stuff done on your behalf. 

By clearly communicating your feelings and needs, on top of yourself – you are also helping others who want to help you as well. Let others take the load off your shoulder and keep all the stress at bay!

Get Yourself Pampered

Lastly, be sure to give your body its much-deserving rest. Your body took about nine months to grow your child, so you should let it take just as much time or even longer to heal.

You can consider our postnatal massage service which is exclusive for mothers who have just given birth.

Postnatal massage greatly improves postpartum hormone balance, prevents water retention, and also expels excess wind from your body. A massage gets your circulation going, helps you to relax, allows you to destress, and just makes you feel good, enabling you to release the tension off your shoulders. If you think a one-time massage is great, wait till you get on a post natal massage course that offers multiple sessions in a package. It will blow your mind. 

Here at PNSG, we offer authentic Javanese postnatal massage, which is one of the most popular postpartum care Singapore mothers find effective in promoting their postpartum recovery. Using wholesome and beneficial ingredients like grapeseed oil, tapel cream, and ginger lotion, our massages are the ultimate therapy to help postpartum mothers recover. What’s more, additional benefits you get from the massages are better sleep, water retention relief, improved womb recovery, and many more. 

Hiring an experienced masseuse will provide you with a rejuvenating treatment that will help you physically and mentally.

Keep in mind that it is recommended to wait around 21-30 days before getting a massage after cesarean delivery. This would give your wound more time to heal, as you might have some pain after you are delivered.

If you practise confinement, you may be reluctant to go out of your house and travel far just for a massage. That is okay!

Agencies like ourselves, PNSG, will send our massage therapist down to your house to perform the massage.

Closing Words

All in all, you just have to remember to give your body time to heal and recover. It may sound easy to do, but new mothers tend to overlook this aspect of postpartum body care due to being occupied with their newborn.

So, just take this article as our little reminder of some postpartum recovery tips for you to care for yourself as much as your care for your baby and a nifty little guide of some sort on how to recover after giving birth.