The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Is your belly doming? Do bodypillows made diastasis worse and give you hip problems? etc etc..more questions!
This week I'm answering some more of your questions and emails,
Will using a bodypillow during pregnancy really lead to greater diastasis recti and hip problems?
Why learning to breathe properly is the single most important thing you can do for your post-partum recovery.
I'm also talking about "doming" again
And finally, why Gisele Bündchen is NOT the person you want to compare your body to when you're post-partum (I can't believe I have to say this but someone asked if I could give them a tummy like Gisele "because she's had 4 kids and looks amazing!!")
Just a reminder that HPNB now only has 5 billing cycles!
So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!
BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
This means you can sign up after your first child, use the program and recover and then still have access after giving birth to child 2 and 3!
None of this "pay X amount a year" nonsense, once you've paid..you've paid!
This makes HPNB not just the most efficient and complete post-partum recovery program, it's also BY FAR the best value.
Though I'm not terribly active on Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!
And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)
Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.
Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions or comments
If you could rate the podcast on your favourite platform that would be a big help.
Playing us out; "Sinking" (The stripped version) by Ramona Woolf
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. What am I talking about today? Many, many, many, many, many, many, many things. I had several emails in this week. Will using a body pillow during pregnancy really lead to greater diastasis, recti and hip problems? That was one of the questions why learning to breathe properly is the single most important thing you can do for your postpartum recovery, which is something I've touched on. I'm also talking about doming again. And finally, why giselle bunchen and I think I'm pronouncing that correctly is not the person you want to compare your body to when you're postpartum, even though she has also had four kids. All that and more you know after the music. Hey, welcome to the He Post-Night on Body podcast.
Peter:This is a podcast for the 4th of May 2025. And it's just a little of me this week. I hope you're well. I hope you're having a great week. I'm joined by only three of my fluffies. It's not fair. Bobby is asleep. Dinky is snoring a little bit, so if you hear that in the background, you know that's what that. Bobby is asleep. Dinky is snoring a little bit, so if you hear that in the background, you know, that's what that is, and Lola Bear is also asleep.
Peter:Several emails in this week. I don't have an interview. I have several interviews scheduled, but they'll probably be later on in the month. To be honest, I'm talking about exercising women over 40 with someone this week which I hope will go out in two weeks um, in two weeks time, and I have a ton of series, uh, scheduled peter, at healthy plus natal bodycom. By the way, if you want to get in touch, if you have any questions or you know someone who should come on um onto the podcast, I have had one or two requests, be sure, sure that if you request someone come on the podcast, I'll probably reach out to those people. So I've reached out to Dr Sarah Duvall and several charities that deal with bereavement. What else am I talking about? Masek and all those sort of things. If I think they're interesting and I think they're genuinely experts or they have something to say, then I always get in touch.
Peter:If you are getting in touch in this quack cells, structured water could you ask him what structured water is about? No, that is not the kind of podcast this is. You need to go to another podcast for that, where they are. You know, go to Joe Rogan or one of those sort of Ben what's his face? He'll happily have those guys on and talk about that stuff as if it's real science. I, however, cannot. What I can do. What I can do is answer your questions, so what I'm talking about. Today I had an email from someone who suggested let me see if I can find that. Yeah, hey, pete, feel free to call me Pete. By the way, everybody calls me Peter, but if you want to call me Pete in emails, that's fine. Hey, pete, thanks very much for the podcast. I really enjoyed listening. Well, that's always very, very nice.
Peter:I came across this post so I had a look at this post. I'm not going to say who. It was done by Claiming that a body pillow sleeping with a body pillow during pregnancy leads to greater leads to more diastasis recti, makes your diastasis recti worse and can cause hip problems. And then I clicked on the link and, like I said, I'm not going to say who posted this, but it was posted by air quotes, a postpartum exercise specialist and postpartum exercise specialist, and they claimed that you know, if you use a body pillow as support during pregnancy, that diastasis recti could be worse because your body doesn't naturally correct itself. Whatever the hell they were claiming I'm not going to read it out, because as soon as I read it out, you might enter the phrase into google. You might actually find it right. A couple of things, oh, and also said it leads to hip problems and pelvic girdle pain and all that sort of stuff. Right, a couple of things. Um, the article was purely clickbait. Um, it was said something like stop using a body pillow. The article was purely clickbait.
Peter:And a lot of people, when they write blog posts or articles or tweets and all that sort of stuff, they mainly care about the clicks. They don't care about whether the information in it is particularly accurate. They want to get a discussion going, because engagement and by discussion I don't mean a genuine discussion, I mean they want engagement Clickbaity headlines are always, almost inevitably, going to lead to junk articles. That is just the way it is. Secondly, and fear sells, and that's what this is about Fear sells. Telling you to throw your body pillow away will lead to you going, oh no, I shouldn't use this. And and what? What should I then do? And indeed, it ends up with this uh person suggesting that you buy one of their products instead, because that's what it always does, right?
Peter:Um, also, postpartum access, my specialist, is not a job title. In the same way that I say at the start of podcasts you postnatal expert people up, right, no, I'll take away the both the people up, because that is genuinely my name, postnatal expert. I only say postnatal expert, not as a job title. I'm just saying that because I've done my 10,000 plus hours and I genuinely have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. That is not what my job title is. It's not a protected term. Someone else could say tomorrow they could rock up and go. I'm also a postnatal expert, okay, and I can't sue them, right. And it's not like a term like physio or uh or doctor, right. And even when people use the term doctor, then you have to make sure that their, their doctor title is relevant to the subject that they're talking about. So when someone says dr michael mosley and they're talking about diet and that's not at all what he's qualified to do, but, just for clarity, he's a psychiatrist. So you know, the appeal to authority doesn't really work. Now, this person is qualified because I happen to know the person who wrote the blog post a little bit through somebody else.
Peter:Basically, what you find here is, first of all, yeah, you, will a body pillow really make your guy's size and strength that worse? No, will it lead to hip problems? No, of course it won't. You know, that's just not how the human body works. That would be like saying, oh Pete, you use two pillows for support at night, as in what my big old bald head rests on. That will make your neck problems worse. No, it won't. In fact, quite the opposite. The more support you give your body genuine support, rather than bracing the more comfortable it is and the more relaxed everything stays.
Peter:Um, this is not about things like, uh, wearing a corset or wearing one of diastasis recti or posture bands or whatever the hell. They are postpartum, those things don't work and they actively work against the body. But having a a pillow is just stupid to even contemplate that, to even think that that would make diastasis recta worse, and there's no evidence to suggest it does either. But we have to remember that the fitness industry is built on two things fear and jealousy. Right, and fear, that's what this article kind of. We're coming to jealousy in a little bit.
Peter:Funnily enough, fear is what this article is based on oh my god, don't do this, buy something else. Fear sells, like I said before, because it sticks. Fear is a very powerful emotion and therefore it's easier to sell something on the back of fear, because it sticks. Fear is a very powerful emotion and therefore it's easier to sell something on the back of fear. If we could just remove the fear around pregnancy a little bit and postpartum life a little bit, that would be very easy. This is why I always say in any interview I do, and I've got several interviews coming out soon on other podcasts and all this sort of stuff as I always say, every, almost every postpartum issue you can think of is not one that you need to be scared of. Unless you're talking severe injury, almost everything else can be fixed. So diastasis recti, hip problems, pelvic girdle pain, um, back and neck issues, all that sort of stuff, muscle weakness, muscle dysfunction Unless you have genuine injuries, as you know anal sphincter injury and all that sort of stuff, tearing, that sort of thing there is nothing that can't be helped with some relatively straightforward intervention, let me put it that way. So we don't need to be scared about this stuff, we just need to be aware of it. So when I talk about diastasis recta. I'm not doing that to be afraid. Be very afraid of diastasis recta. No, it's no big deal, you fix it Because it can be fixed. And it can be fixed through exercise in almost all cases. And one of the ways nice little segue why? One of the ways to fix that is by learning to breathe and contract the muscle properly during um when you're exhaling.
Peter:Now, some of you might remember I did that interview with anthony anthony low a little while ago where we touched on diaphragmatic breathing and all that sort of stuff and he, much like myself, thinks it's ridiculous. So we're very much on the same page on that one. I had an email from someone showing me a link again YouTube video where this very lovely guy was talking about how you should use diaphragmatic breathing to recover postpartum and he did say a lot of things right. He said breathing is one of the most important things you need to do for your postpartum recovery and all that. I completely agree. Just the type of breathing he's using is a little bit incorrect. Type of breathing he's using is is is a little bit incorrect, um, diaphragmatic breathing, the exaggerated contraction of the diaphragm, because that's what we're essentially talking about and that's the deep side during which I use my diaphragm is not at all what's going to help you contract the muscles around your belly button area. I'm saying this very simply. Now have a look at the Core Breath video and I might stick it in the podcast description. If I remember, the Core Breath video that I made is about five minutes of me yacking and the sound quality is pretty terrible Because I filmed this a long time ago and I need to, you know, film a new one, but you know I don't have the time, I'm too busy.
Peter:Part of the way I like women to breathe postpartum and in an ideal world, I like men to breathe like this during exercise as well is with a slightly different way of contracting the muscles, especially when you have diastasis recta. First of all, we exhale on effort every single time. Right so, on the squat, that means you exhale on the way up. On the lunge, it means you exhale on the way up. On a bicep curl, that means you exhale on the way up military press. Guess what? It's on the way up. Usually when you're fighting gravity, when you're swinging kettlebell, it's about when the kettlebell moves away from your body. Deadlift, again, it's on the way up Nine out of ten times. It's when something is moving away from the floor. Let me put it that way. That's when you're exhaling, that's when you're supposed to exhale.
Peter:Whether that's short breath or long breath, breath doesn't really matter. It doesn't all have to be that deep exhale as you go that you do in, say, yoga or Pilates or anything like that. It can be much shorter and more powerful, like when you're doing 50 kettlebell swings. You boom, boom, boom. That means short exhale, short inhale, short exhale, short inhale. Not in a hyperventilating kind of way, but it's just contract, let go, contract, let go, because that is what those exercises are for. Right, that is why you do the exercise. The exercise is, as you do a, for instance, a kettlebell swing. Every time you move forward, you're supposed to contract your glutes, so that is why I want you to exhale, so that your core is tight at the top as well.
Peter:And again, I talk about this in uh, one of the videos called exercise, high intensity, interval training and exercise, and I think I did a blog post on that as well. It's one of the earlier blog posts on the healthy postnatal body uh website and I think you know. I think it's very clear how how high intensity interval training is safe during pregnancy as long as you do it. Safe postpartum when you have diastasis recti, as long as you exhale properly and try to contract the muscles in the right way. It's actually it's a good thing to do high intensity interval training when you have diastasis recti as long as everything functions relatively well. But you want to to go back to breathing properly, but you want to make sure the bit below the core contracts first, below the belly button contracts first. So I teach my clients and my members to breathe slightly differently.
Peter:The biggest part of postpartum recovery is indeed learning how to breathe properly during normal motion. That can be getting up off the couch, getting up off the floor, picking up a child and all that sort of stuff. I've spoke about that before Teaching your muscles to contract at the right time in the right way, rather than teaching your body to cheat. And diaphragmatic breathing just kind of doesn't. It focuses on the wrong bit, as far as I'm concerned and as far as several other people are concerned now as well, thank goodness. And that kind of leads me on to the doming bit. I had an email from somebody who asked me to have a look at her um, at a video of her doing exercises and talking about soft doming and this lady sends emails regularly. I absolutely love it. They're always insightful questions. Um, and, like I said, anthony uhowe and I discussed soft doming before. I think we opened with that bit in our tumultuous interview and we're talking about soft doming and why it isn't an issue and all that sort of stuff.
Peter:I take a slightly different approach as to what soft doming is, but fundamentally this comes down to the not being too scared to push yourself, sort of thing. Dying status rei isn't scary. Doing a couple of leg raises or leg lowerings with a little bit of doming that you can bring under control again is not going to break you. It just isn't. It's only when you have zero control of your core and you then put too much internal pressure. The internal pressure is too much on your core that you could cause yourself an injury. With regards to diastasis recti and that is usually this type of diastasis recti that we find in men it's injury related, so weakness and then increased internal pressure and then pop goes the weasel, so to speak, and therefore doming soft doming, so not the entire belly popping out and being rock solid and full of air and all that sort of stuff is not really an issue. It's that big belly full of air and hard doming that is a problem, because that is internal pressure that is, and soft doming doesn't have that at all.
Peter:If your muscles are standing controlling, you just have that little line in the middle, a longer linear elbow popping out a little bit, and you can bring that under control a little bit more. It's perfectly fine to push yourself a bit harder. In fact I would argue that is exactly what you should be doing. So in this lady's case, she said she could do four leg lowerings. So that's basically like a leg raise, right, but you don't do the upper part as controlled as with a leg raise and that leg lowering. So the tension is then during the lowering of the legs. She could do four, right, but then she could bring it back on the control again. Oh, that's a good time to start doing four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That is not the time to stop and it's also, I would argue, the time to start doing more complex movement. It's a little bit like that interview I did with one of my favorite interviews, jessica Marie Rose Leggio, and I did one, one of my favorite interviews.
Peter:Jessica Marie Rose Leggio and I did one on postpartum running. She's a postpartum running expert. I think that must be a year or so ago that I did that and, like she said, it's all about the psoas, right, that lady, and she's phenomenal, big, big fan of her work. We need to learn, we need to teach our body to do several things when one exercise isn't particularly as dinky, now start to snore a bit louder. So apologies for that, um as as um, sorry, I'll just see if I could cut it out. Thank you, she did. Anyways, I'm not going to re-record this, no, I'm just going to crack on because that's what I do. There's a level of professionalism you pay for with a free podcast with no sponsors.
Peter:As she was saying, we need to teach people to put the body under different kinds of strain and we'll find that certain exercises. So if you struggle with leg lowerings, that doesn't mean that the solution to that is to not do them anymore or to drop back to knee lowerings and, you know, bend your knees and all that sort of stuff. If you can do four and then bring it on the control again, it's okay to do five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and I would argue that there is more than one way to skin a cat so you can keep working those muscles and pushing those muscles harder by doing different kinds of exercises. You know, do TVA, leg raises Again, it's on the YouTube channel, on our YouTube channel, just YouTube, tva, leg raises. I think I'm the only one that actually does them, youtube channel. Or just YouTube TVA. I think I'm the only one that actually does them.
Peter:So, putting more strain on the surrounding area to help this specific muscle that you're struggling to contract, isolate and work a bit harder, right? So, in a way, you're pushing yourself more by targeting that area a little bit more, just in a different way. Like I said, we don't have to be scared when we have diastasis recta. You're not going to break yourself. You're only going to break yourself if you do the wrong thing continuously. Let me put put it that way and that is following a shitty program. Yeah, you're going to break yourself a little bit because you're teaching your body to move incorrectly, but pushing yourself a bit harder to get to the next stage of a well-trodden route, that is completely fine. Apologies, I had a little frog stuck down my throat. Where are we Giselle? I'm 20 minutes in on the last email.
Peter:Two people this week asked me about Giselle Bunchen. She was in the Daily Mail and that is when I always get emails, as you know. Giselle says blah, blah, blah. The Daily Mail is a horrible rag of a newspaper. And that is when I always get emails, as you know. Giselle says blah, blah, blah. Giselle. You know the Daily Mail is a horrible rag of a newspaper and especially the website is even worse. But apparently it is the world's biggest, most visited daily website after Google or something like that, so at least daily news website. So I get some emails and say can I look like Giselle? Now a couple of things. And I always say this Giselle is not a.
Peter:First of all, comparing yourself to other women is never great. Comparing yourself to a supermodel is just insane, right? Whether that's Giselle or Cindy Crawford or Claudia Schiffer, anything like that, unless you're a supermodel. Comparing yourself to professional athletes again terrible idea. They are professional athletes. Asking Jessica Enneshill how you can get abs like her is insane. You're out of your mind. You're never going to get abs like her, unless you are genetically relatively similar and you've trained a certain way from the age of seven or eight, or you put the hours in that she used to put in and have the diet that she put in and had the diet that she had, which is all geared around performance rather than, rather than, aesthetics, right?
Peter:People who are selling you the idea that you can get a belly like a Jess Hennis Hill, a Claudia Schiffer or Giselle are just insane. Especially in the case of Giselle, because I get emails saying, no, she's had four kids and she looks amazing. Yeah, she also had a shit ton of surgery, and she's open about this, and I'm not judging anyone for getting a tummy tuck, but you cannot compare your postpartum body to the postpartum body of a supermodel that has had a tummy tuck. You're never going to get that stomach. That is just not going to happen. Right, and again, this is not Miss Bunch's fault. She's not selling that. She's selling looks, sure, but she's not telling you that you should look like her. As far as I'm concerned, she's not selling you her fitness program. She doesn't have a fitness program, does she? I haven't looked that up. As you can tell, I'm massively. I don't prepare for this thing, right? I just answer your questions and I give my little opinions, so I don't know whether she's selling stuff. As far as I know, she's not going to be selling something. She's not going to say that you can look like her when she's had a boob job and she's had a tummy tuck and all that, uh, and those things. I did look up because, uh, someone sent me a picture of her, uh, with a tummy. Can I have? Will your program? That was literally the question will your program give me a tummy like giselle? And it was a picture of her existing stomach, as in this reader.
Peter:This potential member Of HPMB Like I said, potential member is always odd to me Because you get three months free access and you can cancel any time. So you know, try it out, go to healthyplusnatalbodycom, you sign up, you try it out. You don't like it, it you cancel on day one, even if you have no intention of paying for it. Cancel on day one. You never get charged because you know you still get three months completely free, right? You get, basically, you get the mutu part free for me, and then after that you start paying eight pound a month or ten dollars a month, wherever you are, um, if you don't cancel, of course. If you cancel, then you don't get charged um't get charged, anyway.
Peter:And this lady had a completely normal postpartum belly but she wanted a tummy like Giselle's. Now you need a surgeon. You need a surgeon. There's nothing any postpartum expert in the world can do to make your tummy look as lovely as Giselle's tummy looks, because it's completely flat and I've trained several people after tummy tucks and all that sort of stuff and you know, if you're a good plastic surgeon, it's a phenomenal thing. I mean, it's seriously, truly impressive how, how flat they can get them Tom Tom's.
Peter:But it's not the most natural look in the world. It looks fine on Giselle because she's a supermodel, but it's. I've trained people that have a weird. If you know what you're looking for, it looks a bit off. Let me put it that way. I'm not saying it doesn't look good. It is impressive, but it doesn't look quite right.
Peter:If you know what I mean, you're not going to get that through exercise ever. That is just not going to happen. And you're not going to look like another person just through exercise if that other person has either trained their entire life to look a certain way or to move a certain way and has the body Look at Simone Biles right, the best gymnast in the world by a mile and she has rock hard abs and all that. You're not going to look like that unless you train like she does Right, and eat like she does. These are Olympic level athletes.
Peter:Athletes, stop comparing yourself to to to women like that. It's not realistic. Uh, and, like I said, giselle is a terrible example as a role model, because even for her, her stomach was not achievable. She needed plastic surgery. And this comes under the idea that women have this fear and men have this fear to a lesser extent.
Peter:Right, we need to look like Chris Hemsworth and all we can do for that is take steroids and pump loads of iron, or the rock, which, again, for which you need to take loads of steroids, and you grow hormone and spend loads of time in the gym and have a personal chef and all that sort of stuff.
Peter:Um, that doesn't mean it's not impressive what they, what they accomplish, but it just means that it's not realistic for most people. We need to have a much more realistic idea of of of what we can and what we should look like. Right, if you're surrounded by Instagram and TikTok to a less extent I suppose I'm not on TikTok, I don't know. We've got the HB&B Instagram account and the Facebook account and I never spend any time on there really but if you compare yourself to the top 1% in the world and then you add that top one percent uh has access to surgery, has disurgence and spends tens of thousands of pounds on that, that's a bad way to be to to compare yourself to that right you don't need to look like that.
Peter:A completely normal, well-functioning stomach is more than fine for most people. As one of my old colleagues always used to say, even if you're a six, even if you're above average, it means you're ahead of 50% of the population, and you know. Just stop buying into the fear or the envy, the jealousy that you need to look like someone else, because, again, it's what sells fitness programs. It does, and I could be a lot more successful with HPMB if I just told you you could look a certain way, but unfortunately you can't. You look the way you look, right. Just get your body functioning well, get your diastasis recti healed and you look a bit better, more toned and all that sort of stuff. If that's what you're into, that's the primary. The primary job of any sort of postpartum rehab specialist or postpartum expert, postpartum exercise specialist or diastasis recti specialist all terms that are not protected and anybody can call themselves. That is to get you moving as well as you can and to get you feeling as strong and confident as you can and make sure everything functions so you don't pee yourself every time, so your belly doesn't stick out every time, so that your core can support you when you need it to support, so your back doesn't hurt. Core can support you when you need it to support so your back doesn't hurt and your neck doesn't hurt. That is what the job is now. As part of that, if you do like, for instance, hbmb exercise routine and you keep that up for a while, yeah, of course your stomach is going to be flatter. It's just because the muscles are going to be stronger. Will your bum be tighter and your legs be more toned and all that sort of stuff? Yes, of course, because you you're going to do a lot of squats and lunges and all that sort of thing. Will your posture be better and have more toned arms? Yes, because you're lifting weights. But it is not the goal of the program. The goal of the program is to make sure you can do all the things that you want to do in life safely and confidently without getting injured.
Peter:Anyways, that is my ramblings for today. I think we're just about to hit the half hour mark. Let's check. Yeah, just past the half hour, and when it's just little old bee, I try to stick to a half hour one, because otherwise you know you're already fed up. Listening to my voice, I can hear half of you drifting off already.
Peter:Peter at HealthyPalsNatalBodycom, no-transcript, recycling and all that sort of stuff on for two years and I finally found one and he's in Australia. He's John Pabon, by the way, and so I hope this goes ahead. Otherwise I look like a jackass for saying his name, but a true, by the way, so I hope this goes ahead. Otherwise I look like a jackass for saying his name, but a true expert in even fields that are somewhat related to postpartum life or just life in general. Recommend these people to me because I'm dead keen to get one or two of these people on.
Peter:And you know, if there's anyone in particular you want to hear from, then it's interesting to me as well. Especially, I love talking to experts that genuinely know what they're talking about, and I've done hundreds of, or 100 plus, interviews over the past couple of years and and some of them are just insanely good and very insightful and all that sort of stuff. Um, so you know, get in touch peter at healthy plus natal bodycom if you have anyone. Get in touch peterhuffyplusnatalbodycom if you have anyone you want me to speak to. That's me done for the week. I'll be back next week, probably just little old me again. So send me more questions, send me more comments, and you know I'll check in on you next week, right?
Speaker 3:Bye now, just like I've always been. Will I ever reach Anywhere anywhere? I don't belong to you. We're only destined here, swimming in the blue, going somewhere. I'm looking down From the radio tower and I see your house when we talk for hours. All I know Is don't let go. All I know our hearts are gone. Oh, oh oh. I'm sinking into old emotions. Cut me loose. Show me a point of view. Anywhere, anywhere, I found a light in you. I think it's something true. You could eclipse the moon. I'm looking down from the meteor shower and I'm freaking out Cause I want more hours. All I know is don't let go. All I know are hearts of.
Speaker 3:God got now hold your hand hold your hand up cause I'm sinking down, down. Hold you for what you are. We're made of shooting stars. I'm sinking into you, just like I've always been.
Speaker 2:I'm sinking into you just like I've always been. It's too late for me Anywhere anywhere. I don't know. I am all in this and I hope so. I don't know, I'm so tired. Oh, it's so fair.