The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
How long does postpartum recovery take without help? And, follow the RIGHT science communicators!
This week I, once again, briefly touch on how long it takes to recover postpartum. This after a question from someone who asked "how long it would take to recover if you didn't do anything vs following a program".
It's a fascinating question tbh and it kind of all depends on what you mean with "post partum recovery".
I explain why I believe everyone needs a bit of assistance with their recovery and what the best methods, in order of effectiveness, are.
I then talk for a while about the importance of following the right science communicators.
A great post by Dr Colenso Semple on threads (my preferred platform) shows that just citing a paper, and even reading a paper, is not enough. In this case she highlights that one of the studies referenced in the paper was now retracted and written by someone who had falsified data.
This shows you just how important it is to follow the right science communicators. I personally follow several and they are all experts in their related fields. Getting ALL your science info from one source (for instance Huberman) leaves you open to "the grift" and if people don't really know what they're talking about/citing then it's very easy to misinterpret a piece of information. (As I highlight by talking about another post with regards to Artificial Sweeteners and increased bodyfat %)
Here is the link to that paper and here is the reference I talk about which shows why you really have to read these things carefully.
As always; HPNB still 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
Playing us out "Melange Francais" by Reves Francais
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, will be me. Today I am talking once again about postpartum recovery time how long does it really take and all that type of stuff. And I'm talking a little bit about and quite a bit about the problem with quoting studies and random studies and all that type of stuff. So there's a lot of stuff floating around where you see TikTok videos where people make a claim and they say give a PubMed ID, and you know they say that this proves that, and then you look at the study and then really look at the study and then you have to look at the study even more. And that's basically the importance of listening to genuine experts and not just random people who make random claims. Right, that's kind of what we're going for. So, without further ado, here we go. Hey, welcome to the Alfie Postnato Buddy Podcast with little old me. I am here with absolutely everybody Bob and Feefus and Peggy and Porridge and Luigi and Buddy. They're all here and it's carnage. So that's what we're going for today. That's what I'm trying to get half an hour out of this, and I think that's the best I can do. A quiet half hour. That would be amazing where you don't have too much noise in the background. So that's the goal.
Peter:This is the podcast for the 8th of june 2025. I hope you're well, peter at healthy postnatal bodycom. As always, is the email address to get in touch. Um, I'm going to discuss two little things and I'm not sure I did it right in the intro. Um, we're going to touch a little bit again on postpartum recovery time how long is it really if you do something and how long is it really if you don't. And I'm going to do a little bit on which experts to follow online and why not everybody that quotes studies and PubMed ideas and all that sort of PubMed ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas. Yeah, is the right person to listen to, especially if they can't even pronounce. You know the ID.
Peter:The two-faced such as myself, right, just showing that listing a study isn't enough, that even that reading a study isn't necessarily enough. You have to check references. This is in response to or because of an excellent thread, because I'm on threads by Dr Colenso Semple, who is phenomenal, lauren. What is her handle, drlaurencs1? On threads that just shows you that listing a study is enough. You have to check the references and who wrote the papers and all that type of stuff. And this is why it's almost impossible for lay people to read studies, and I struggle in a lot of fields. Studies from experts, I just kind of have to take their word for it. A lot of the stuff from endocrinologists, I don't know, that is so far above my pay grade, so far outside my scope, that I don't touch it and I just have to rely on the genuine experts and and and see what they say. Right so, following the right people. So I'm going to give you some ideas as to who to follow and all that sort of stuff as well.
Peter:First of all, how long does recovery take? This keeps coming up and I know I did something on it recently. Quick outline I was asked the question how long does postpartum recovery take if I train, as in, if this person were to train with me, and how long if this person wouldn't train with me? Now I'll give the example of a normal pregnancy no complications. Vaginal birth and in a 30-odd-year-old woman Age doesn't really matter that much for postpartum recovery. It matters for health risks, the babies and all that type of stuff during pregnancy, but not for postpartum recovery. There is no evidence that shows that someone in there who's had a child when she's 41, 42, will take significantly longer to recover than anyone in their 20s. Anyone in their 20s. But how much longer does it take when you do the right exercises and take follow the right protocol, so to speak? So with regards to rest and all that type of stuff, first and up, versus a person who doesn't do these things, it's kind of a how long is a piece of string type question right?
Peter:We know from certain things like things like pelvic girdle pain let's start there that should in most cases, or that will in most cases, um resolve itself a few weeks postpartum. Uh, diastasis recti in most cases, 80 percent of cases is resolved within the first year resolve itself a few weeks postpartum. Diastasis recti in most cases, 80% of cases is resolved within the first year. Looking at the gap again, I have to kind of say that 80% of cases resolve themselves within the first year. Postpartum back pain usually ends up resolving it. And I class again, I class postpartum back pain has anything to do with being postpartum. So not just back pain caused by having given birth or having a week of postpartum, it's just everything carrying babies and all that sort of stuff is part of that, and most of the time most mothers will find this when they don't have to carry their kids around anymore. So two, three years postpartum, when the child can walk a little bit more, postpartum, back pain tends to go away as well. When breastfeeding stops, for instance, posture issues quite regularly go away. Issues quite regularly go away.
Peter:I don't necessarily class that but A. I don't necessarily class that as recovery. Right, recovery for me is very much of the can you do the things? Is everything working the way it's supposed to be working? And can you do the things you used to be able to do prenatal? That is kind of how I see this. My job is not, and note that I said can you do the things not? Do you weigh the same and do you look the same? Right, that is not for me. That is not the role of of a postpartum exercise people, right, I mean, you look the same, you can look stronger and fitter, but I'm not. You know that that whole bounce back idea is is ridiculous.
Peter:Stuff should work and often it has to be said, often it can work better postpartum than it did prenatal, because you know, yeah, you probably weren't even paying attention to some of these things before you fell pregnant and postpartum it becomes a thing and things you put up with before pregnancy a bit of back pain and all that sort of stuff you might not put up with anymore. Postpartum you might find that if you address them, they go away and you feel fitter and you feel better. Right, there are a tremendous amount of things, like I said, pelvic girdle pain, diastasis, back pain, neck pain, posture issues and all that type of stuff and many, many more that you could suffer from, that you could be experiencing postpartum, that you're uncomfortable with, that you want rid of. Most women experience at least one or two of these things. Right, diastasis recti is 100% right, as in 100% of women who give birth have diastasis recti. That is just the way it is. It doesn't mean it stays A lot of the time. It recovers by itself, like I said, but at least the gap narrows by itself. Sorry, let me be very clear. It doesn't recover by itself. You need to exercise a bit for this. But and because there's such a wide variety of things that you could be experiencing postpartum, I think it's probably a good idea to always make sure you work with somebody, because that way you can actually recover postpartum and experience none of those things say eight to nine months postpartum and experience none of those things say eight, nine months postpartum.
Peter:I have worked with many, many, many people face to face. I'm talking about face-to-face pt right, physio or or personal training doesn't really matter that much as far as I'm concerned for postpartum recovery if again assuming normal birth and all that type of stuff I find that People who work with someone Three, four, five months After working with somebody, they notice significant improvements, whereas if you just wait on stuff Fixing itself Just through time, that is significantly longer, especially pelvic floor issues. Pelvic floor issues don't resolve themselves, and that kind of goes for most issues. When I say diastasis recti is healed a year postpartum in 80% of cases, yes, but only if you look at the gap and all that sort of stuff. It doesn't mean muscle activation and everything is working properly. This is why I always say work with somebody, and this is the order of things. Right, if you can work with someone one-on-one, then great, that's what you do. I'm not talking about online, by the way, I'm just talking face to face. Well, work with someone face to face, one-on-one if you can. Uh, if you can't afford that or there's no one available in in your area, then they work two-on-one, maybe four-on-one, or there's no one available in your area, then they work two-on-one, maybe four-on-one in a small group. That is about the max.
Peter:I wouldn't do 10-person postpartum exercise classes. They are pretty much useless and usually worse than a good online program. Then there's the good online programs. You know HPMB. There's several other ones out there, but I'm not going to name them. But they are again. They're mainly put together. They are generic versions of what you would do with 90% of cases. So this is very much a case of if you don't have any complications, then this is your next. This is you know they're perfectly fine. You just need a bit more motivation to do it yourself.
Peter:Make sure that it's a program where you can ask whoever created the program questions Again, like hpnbpeterhealthypostnatalbodycom, just because you can then ask changes for modification. You ask for modifications and all that type of stuff. A good program has different fitness levels, different levels of capability built in anyways. That type of stuff. A good program has different fitness levels, different levels of capability built in anyways. But you know, if you can, whatever you do, don't follow random YouTube things. Those are pretty much your costs covered and, like I said, always you have to kind of, for postpartum recovery you kind of always have to work with someone.
Peter:I see way too many women five, six, seven years postpartum who have issues that would have been resolved in three or four months if they just worked with somebody and, like I said, it doesn't have to be me, but if they had just done something about it these things would have resolved themselves usually. And this is kind of the benefit of working with someone who knows what they're talking about. I have never really come across well, to be fair, never really. I've come across one or two people that have had no issues postpartum, but they are usually usually people who were very active before they had kids. They kept exercising during pregnancy and postpartum they also went back to. They had no complications and postpartum they just went back to the normal exercise routine. In that case, completely fine, and that is usually the benefit of staying active during the pregnancy. Staying active during the pregnancy really shortens the recovery time you need postpartum.
Peter:So there we go on that particular subject, speaking of experts and this is quite a tricky one there was a post by Dr Loren Colenso-Sample on threads. Like I said before, I'm on threads this is the only social media I really do and she said something along the lines of she quoted a paper saying this 2023 paper makes claims about metabolic rate and menopause. Reference for these claims is a retracted paper by Eric T Pullman, who pled guilty to falsifying data and went to prison in 2006. This is kind of the issue If you look at the paper itself and Dr Lorenzo Semple is legit, right, I follow her and that means she's really, really good. That's kind of how it goes. But the paper is the Importance of Nutrition in Menopause and Perimenopause a Review, and it then, you know, I mean, this is one of those, that one of those papers I didn't even go through. This is so far outside my scope, which is why I follow Dr Colanzo's sample. That's why I follow experts such as herself.
Peter:But what the paper is interesting with regards to this post. It's interesting because it just shows you that listing a study isn't enough If you just cite the study and then people go okay, whatever you say, it's legit. You can use this paper to back that up, and this is an ongoing problem in science communication. People just quote a PubMed ID and people assume that it's a good study. And there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight people who worked on this, on this paper. Right, and, according to the thing, these authors contributed equally to the work and you know they're all School of PhD Studies, department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and blah blah blah in Hungary and Hungary and Hungary Most of it is all of them are in Hungary.
Peter:But the issue is that if you read the paper, if you just read the paper, you would believe what the paper said. It makes claims that things are a certain way with regards to slowing down the metabolic rate in menopause. It's a paper along the lines of it's difficult to lose weight in menopause. And then you see this and you assume this to be correct. And even if you could understand what the text is and, like I said, this is quite a tricky one at least it is for me, because it's well outside of what I'm used to reading and I've no interest in studying these things for six, seven months. But it shows you that you have to.
Peter:When you read a paper, you also have to check the references. Just because someone publishes an article or a paper, that doesn't mean that the paper is any good doesn't mean that you should listen to it, and it doesn't mean that the paper is any good. It doesn't mean that you should listen to it and it doesn't mean that they are correct in what they're saying. People make mistakes, right, and this is why for me, you know, it is so difficult for people who are really unfamiliar with the subject, who just want to kind of know something about a subject and whether that's postpartum health or food or whatever exercise at that level, at the PhD level, you really have to know what you're talking about and you have to have the time to read these things properly. And and the more you know about what you're talking about, the faster you can read these things.
Peter:If you, like me, and you don't know anything about, uh, about menopause, uh, with regards to, at this level at least, right, it would just take me ages to actually dissect it, and this is why, following someone like Dr Colento Semple and I keep saying the doctor and then Title and surname that is how we address doctors on this particular podcast, unless they come on and then it's different. She's basically already shown that the paper shouldn't be touched or cited, and this is an issue that was, for instance, there was another post up by someone I follow. I'm not going to name her because I like her, but the post was you may want to rethink artificial sweeteners after reading this post, considering that long-term use of many artificial sweeteners is linked to fat gain, visceral fat around the organs, adipose and intramuscular weight gain, higher risk of obesity, bigger waistline, increased risk of T2D. Studies took decades to complete and were sponsored by soft drinks or food manufacturers. Now I did read that study. The first one of those and it's a doozy because this is the problem when people read this was a study in International Journal of Obesity long term, aspartame and saccharin intakes are related to greater volumes of visceral, intermuscular and subcontainers adipose tissue the CARDIA study. This is a doozy Sometimes when you have to say, when people come to conclusions that in itself don't make any sense, you have to look a bit deeper, right?
Peter:Why would zero calorie drinks or extremely low calorie drinks soft drinks, in this case, with artificial sweeteners why would that lead to more visceral fat or, you know, even into muscular subcutaneous fat? Why, why, why would that be? Is there? Is there something else you can think of? I'm throwing that out. It's purely rhetorical because I know what the answer is, because I read the paper and then I looked out the references right, the, the, the.
Peter:If you don't know what you're reading, then you might think that this is indeed how it works, that purely taking in artificial sweeteners leads to that, so that there is a causal link between using artificial sweeteners other than sucralose I think it was the only one that they didn't find a link for. But habitual, long-term artificial sweeteners led to and this is a bit over a period of 25 years led to, say, bigger waste let's simplify this massively Bigger waste in most people and that's where a lot of visceral fat, so the fat around your organs, sit. But is it down? Does that make sense? Does that make sense to you, right? So then you look at that study and you read the study.
Peter:You already see one or two issues. There's a lot of self-reporting. Over the course of 25 years they started baseline zero, then they did a seven years, a 15 and a 25. Top of my head they did a 15. Yeah, were assessed by computer tomography at subcontinuous adipose tissue, year seven, year 20 and year 25. That is what it was. And then they measured the 25-year change in body shape and body type and makeup and all that sort of stuff. And they then said well, people report this and therefore this is the thing and we account for everything else. And therefore, artificial is the thing and we account for everything else. And therefore, um, artificial sweetness cause right and and anybody who knows artificial sweetness cause long-term, um, long-term use of other artificial sweetness. Uh, sweetness cause increase, uh, increased fat, basically higher BMI and waistline and all that fat gain, visceral fat and all that type of stuff.
Peter:If you read this, you can already tell that a lot of self reporting is a problem. There's a 13 year gap, that's the problem. Zero, then seven and then 13 years and then after 20 years. So that's 13 years and then after 20 years. So that's a 13-year gap between seven and 20, right. And then you say, hey, what have you been eating over the last 13 years? You can tell that this is going to be. That is iffy. There's a lot of gaps that can easily be picked in that particular one when the conclusion doesn't make sense. If the conclusion is so unlikely to be, if it kind of goes against everything that is logical, then you have to really wonder. Then you have to start picking at the scabs of the study a bit. So that's what I did Go through the references and this is the thing, right. The study references under number 7, in the Cardiac City, as I said. This might hold a clue as to why this is Diet consumers who exclusively drink diet soda seem to drink significantly more than those who don't consume diet soda.
Peter:So that consume full fat drinks. Right, and we're talking to a factor of 5 or 10. So we're talking people who drink diet sodas drink on average 1.58 cans a day, and people who consume normal sodas drink less than a third of a can a day on average. Now we know diet sodas are still not a health drink, right. So people who consume a lot of diet sodas tend to make other on average and not attacking anyone specific or not attacking anyone, but on average they make other, make different health choices than, say, someone who drinks water or fruit juice. Right, if you, if you're full of Diet Coke, right, it's what is it? Right, you can have a kebab and give me a large pizza and a Diet Coke. Right, the Diet Coke comes with the pizza, the Diet Coke comes with the burger, that type of thing. Fewer. People at McDonald's consume water and people who drink a lot of Diet Coke, tend to make a lot of those choices. So I wouldn't be surprised if the overall diet quality is a bit lower in those who drink diet sodas all the time, compared to those who occasionally have a full fat soda.
Peter:Full fat is what we in the UK call normal sodas. Be in the UK call normal sodas. So this is why following the right science communicators is so important. Like I said, I follow people like Dr Colenso Semple, dr Andrea Love, betty Grunge MD she's a lady spine doc she's a neurosurgeon. Angelo Landricina MD he's a dermatologist. Dermangelo on thing, many others. Kai Markhurst if you want a personal trainer, not just a personal trainer, it's his tag, because he's not just a personal trainer Ninia and the Brain Ninia and who else. I follow a whole ton of these people. Following trusted science communicators so not Dr Stacey Simms of the world is important because they will actually be able to tell you what this study says and whether the study is reliable or not, because they are in that field, because they read the papers.
Peter:I read a tremendous amount of stuff on postpartum, on postpartum recovery, postpartum health and all that sort of stuff. A huge amount of stuff. That is what I do. That is kind of what the job is. My job isn't reading studies with regards to aspartame use. I just then go with them. Wait a minute, this sounds wonky and if I have time I will read it and now will dissect it, but that is of my own time, of my own back.
Peter:Following the right people is important because the person, like I said, the person who quoted this particular study, is someone I follow, someone I like, but she got this one massively wrong. Um, because you know you have to read things better, and following the right people in the right fields is is is a huge part of that, and that is why social media is such an important aspect. What you do on social media matter Media matter so much. Don't just randomly follow people that say things and that quote studies or that site studies so that give you a pop mad idea. Dr it's is another one who I follow, even though he sells you'll write, because these are science communicators that know what they're talking about and that is what their job is. They read these papers all the time and they will pick them apart.
Peter:Don't follow people that just cite the source. They have to do a little bit better than that. That's all I'm saying, especially if it's outside their scope. This is why I invite people onto the podcast who are experts and then I repeat what they say, because it's outside my scope. I have an interview coming up later today, which will come out in a couple of weeks, with Janine Tang, who's a speech therapist. I know nothing about that. You don't want to listen to me talking about speech therapy for kids and communication skills in kids and all that sort of thing I get the expert on and then, from then on, I just repeat what they say until another expert says hey, pete, new evidence has shown that X, y, z, right, that's what we do. Anyways, that's me done for another week because the puppies have started stirring Peter at Healthy Postnatal. Buddy, if you have any questions, any comments, here's a new bit of music you take care of yourself. Bye now, thank you, thank you.