The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
FTV Postpartum recovery is nothing to be scared of. Don't worry about Diastasis, pelvic girdle pain, backpain..
It's the start of the year and you'll be seeing a lot of fitness programs advertised at the moment. Yes,e ven postpartum ones.
Most of them will be sold using the old tactic in the book, FEAR.
So I bring you this episode I originally did in August of 2024.
I try to highlight that postpartum recovery, and postpartum health issues, are generally nothing to be scared of.
Diastasis recovery, pelvic girdle pain and back pain solutions are often sold to new mums as "you have A PROBLEM!! BE AFRAID!!" rather than "Yeah, we can sort this. Don't worry about it."
I highlight some of the tactics used to trick you into buying something you don't need.
I also talk about why I think most people will have enough if they have follow a good postpartum program for 3 months. After that you should really be able to start doing what you actually want to do again.
As always; HPNB 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.
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, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic
Playing us out; "Dare to live" by Scarlett Solo
Hey, welcome to the Half Your Post Native Minute Podcast of your Post Native Expert Well, as always, this is a podcast for the 18th of January 2026. Yes, indeed, and this is from the Vault. So this is an episode I did a while ago. There's a lot of um a lot of postpartum programs and exercise programs are being sold at the moment. It's starting to the year and all that type of stuff. And they're sold to you from an angle of fear. Be afraid of postpartum recovery, be afraid of diastasis, be afraid of back pain and and and all that type of stuff. And this is an episode to take all of that away. Because you know, physical postpartum recovery, 99% of the cases, nothing to be worried about. All these things, diastasis rectile, all that sort of stuff is nothing to worry about. You just need to kind of know what you're doing. And so I highlight you know some of the tricks that people use to sell this stuff to you that you shouldn't be falling for. And I highlight why for most people three months is enough recovery time as long as you follow the right program with the right person. You don't need to be at this for years for most people. So without further ado, here we go. So if you're postnatal extra people up, little me, little me. This is a podcast for the 18th of August 2024. Man oh man, time flies. I am surrounded by all seven puppies. So if you hear any noises in the background, there's only so much editing I can do. And I already barely edit this thing as it is. But you can all seven dogs is uh they they make a little bit of noise every now and again, right? So the odd pitter patter, that's what's caused that. Um, I hope you're well. I hope you're enjoying your August. I hope you're absolutely crushing it. Um, a lot of reactions to last week's episode about cycle syncing, more than I usually get, uh, especially from um hormone balance coaches and all that type of stuff. So we'll probably go into that next week. Uh, because some people were very, very upset with me when I said it wasn't that there was no scientific evidence for any any of it. Um yeah, so so that that'll be uh a little bit of next week's episode. I'm hoping to get some other stuff done in as well, have some emails and all that sort of stuff. Uh Peter at healthypostnatalbody.com, by the way. If you have any questions or comments and any of that sort of fun stuff, or you want to indeed see me talk to a guest? I've got some interviews lined up, but I'm struggling to keep up on top of my correspondence at the moment. Basically on top of my emails. Uh, remember how we used to call that our correspondence? Happier days. Made it sound a lot classier than we are now. Um, what am I talking about today? Yes, post-party recovery is nothing to be afraid of. But I've addressed this before, but now I will do so again. I see a tremendous amount of content online that gets emailed to me because to be honest, I don't, like I said before, I don't do a lot of social media. Um, but I see a tremendous amount of content that that gets sent to me and through usually Facebook support groups with people having questions and all that type of stuff. That is predominantly fear-based, right? Um, and though postpartum recovery can be quite tricky for some people, generally speaking, there is nothing to be concerned about. I saw a post the other day, for instance. Uh let me see where it is. Oh, yeah. It said, um, after giving birth to my two daughters, I found I had a condition called diastasis recti. Uh, this is very scary, but this is how I fixed it. That's it. A lot of social media posts run by influencers and and and online coaches and that type of stuff, uh, seem to start like that. Right? They seem to start with this is what my experience was. Then I went through the same experience that you went, having kids in this case. Uh, and then I discovered I had this thing, which makes you identify, um, because a lot of these people seemingly didn't know diastasis was a thing uh beforehand, and then they say, This is how I fixed it, as if they figured out how to fix it. Right. And therefore, you can then buy their stuff. Right now, let me be very clear about uh diastasis, and again, I pronounce it diastasis. Don't email me in saying it's pronounced diastasis. I know it just doesn't roll off my tongue very nicely, and it's a dead language. I don't care that much about that, how to pronounce words in Latin. I really, really don't. Um, and in Holland we'd say diastasis, and it just sounds nicer. Doesn't it? Doesn't it sound nicer? Yes, it does, Pete. Okay, on to the next. Right. So the issue with these things is that when people say this is how I fixed my diastasis, it's um my diastasis. See, now you know uh anybody watches that lasso? You know how a sound just become how a word just becomes a sound and it doesn't sound right anymore. Well, that's what I'm going experiencing now. So when people say this is how I fixed mine, um I always put three or four caveats in there, right? So and I've always said this before, I've said and I know said this before, but this is important to remember 80% of all cases of diastasis heal themselves within a year. If you just look at uh diastasis as a gap sort of problem, and we shouldn't, I'll come to that in a little bit, but if you just look at the gap, the gap closest to within normal range, within two and a half centimeters, 25 mil, about an inch, depending on uh you know if you're measuring in old money, so to speak. Um about 80% of all cases recover by themselves within a year. So you don't know whether old a million crunches, and I've I've seen I've seen this from someone say I just did a hundred crunches every day. Um I can tell you categorically the crunches did not heal your diastasis. I can also tell you that in your case your diastasis would have healed by itself, right? Um, because we know crunches are completely ineffective for uh most um most cases with regards to closing the gap. Then why do you have them in your program, Pete? Because they do help with other things, right? So, and like I said, I'll get to that in a bit. We have to remember that diastasis recovery is almost like I said, in four out of five cases, it's automatic. It's gonna happen anyways. Don't worry about it. It's not scary. The 20% is not that scary, by the way. Right? It can always be healed. If after a year, a year postpartum you find your gap is still larger than it used to be or larger than you'd like it to be, so to speak. So outside normal range, outside that two and a half centimeters, yeah, you can heal it then. It doesn't mean you should not do a postpartum recovery program. I'm just saying that for four out of five women, it's it really isn't much of an issue. Um and this is also why it's so difficult to measure the efficacy, how effective uh postpartum recovery programs are because if you're dealing with something that will heal by itself, then how can you prove something else caused the healing? Do you know what I mean? Does that make any sense? Right? This is what I always said with all the with the studies I've seen with regards to uh diastasis. There is a there's a lady, I can't remember Sarah something, Dr. Sarah something, um, she's doing research in, I want to say Norway, one of the Scandinavian countries into diastasis with group exercise and all that sort of stuff. And she found no evidence for certain things, and that is kind of how for certain exercises. Uh and that is kind of how diastasis research is is going to go. As in, there's no evidence for X, for Y, for Z. Because how do you how do you prove it? Right? Um now the absence of evidence doesn't automatically mean that that stuff is ineffective. It just means you can't prove that something helped. Right? Just because right, let's get contentious here. Just because I don't believe in God and you can't prove there is a God doesn't mean there is no God. Do you know what I mean? There might well be a bear in the woods, so to speak, when I walk the dogs. It's unlikely, but I can't prove there isn't, right? Until I prove there isn't. It it's it's one of those sort of deals. Uh that's a terrible analogy, by the way, forgive me. But it is we know four out of five cases and our P and I'll bang on about this, four out of five cases of diastasrectile will heal themselves, anyways, no matter what. It's just natural. Most most of them, about 50 to 55% of them recover within three to six months. Right? And then a few more on top of that. And by the time we do know that if you're in the 20%, so the one out of five, um, who still feels that they have the notices they have diastasis after a year, it's not gonna heal by itself anymore. It needs a bit of extra help. Right? That gap isn't gonna get any smaller by itself anymore. That that needs that needs a bit of uh a bit of guidance. But it's not the end of the world, there's nothing to be scared of. Right? The reason we do a postpartum recovery program, especially like the healthy prostate body one, is uh because we want certain all the muscles to work again. Like I said before, I think uh like I always say when it comes to diastasis, it's it's diastasis is the width of the gap, the depth of the gap, and muscle functionality around it. And if stuff isn't functioning properly, yeah, you might not have a gap, but your body isn't working properly. It's the muscle functionality part that you need the the postpartum recovery program for. So that's what we focus on, and this is why I I tell people you know how it just if you don't know, then you don't know. But if the healthy postnatal body program is free for three months, and I firmly believe that that three months is enough for 99% of people, you don't need more. Your post your postpartum recovery may well be longer, and you might well want to do more exercise afterwards and all that type of stuff. If you happen to like the program, you might well kick about, right? You might well hang about and and do some more exercises and and all that sort of stuff. If it works for you, it works for you. If you enjoy it, you enjoy it. But most of my face-to-face clients work with me for three months. And the reason for that isn't that after three months they're fully recovered. The reason for that is after three months they know what to do and they can go their merry way. They're on the right path, they're on the right track. And then they can go work with their old PT again, taking into account one or two things that they learned during the first three months, such as breathing correctly, uh, how you should stand, especially for core stuff. All that much muscles to function on, how it feels when muscles feel right versus uh during an exercise versus how it's not quite right, all that type of stuff. But that is what that three-month period is for of any sort of recovery program. Unless you have a really big issue. I think personally, I think most physical therapists dismiss people either way too early or way too late, right? Most um most physical physios and all that type of stuff that you get pointed out through the NHS, you get six or ten sessions and they send you away. And all they've done during those six and ten sessions is basically say, yeah, this is how you move, this a bit, do your exercises, go away. And they've never actually taught you anything. That's the problem, right? It's it's a the first part of a recovery program is about teaching people how stuff should feel, how it works, and then you send them on their mirror away to strengthen up and strengthen up properly and do that in whatever way you want. That is kind of how that should work, in my opinion. Now, some people only get two sessions and they never show up again because it doesn't work for them, but fundamentally that's how it works, right? Or at least that's how it should work. You do a postpartum recovery program for three months, and it should be enough to have you say, Hey, I know how to cycle safely now, I know how to run safely now, I know how to lift heavy things safely now. I can go back to my old personal trainer, and I get this a lot. I get a lot of referrals from other personal trainers saying, hey, dude, can you help? Because, you know, not necessarily, hey, dude, but that's how I talk. Hey, dude, can you help me out? And can you see this client for a few months? And I see a client for a few months and I teach them one or two things or to pay attention for it, breathing, all that type of stuff, and then I send them back. And that means that by the time they go back to their PT, they they are aware of all the things that they need to be aware of to help their postpartum recovery. I've said this before as well. A bicep curl will help heal your diastasis recti if you do it properly. Well, let that sink in a little bit. Uh a bicep curl will help heal your diastasis recti if you do it properly. A cable tricep pushdown will help heal your diastasis if you do it properly. And that is just by breathing correctly and being aware of what your position, what your posture should actually be. You can go back to doing deadlifts and all that sort of stuff after three months, after a post-partum recovery program. Well, at least at least you should be able to. I can't I can't remember top of my head when we start deadlifting uh as part of the HP and B program, but I'm betting it's well before the three-month period. Right? If you look on the on the YouTube channel, I think there are three or four different kinds of deadlifts in there. Some sumo squats, some kettlebell stiff leg deadlifts, there will be split squats, remaining deadlifts, all that type of stuff will be in there. There's no reason why you can't. You just have to know how to breathe and how to contract your core. Uh, it comes back to the core breath and all that sort of stuff. So this is why I always say a postpartum recovery program doesn't need to be longer than three months, which is why I give you three months completely free, right? Because I think everybody should have access to it. I don't think you need to pay a hundred pounds or in other cases a hundred pounds a year for life, which is just stupid, um for forever, right? To gain access, right? The reason people stick around with the HBMB program, I've I've done some research into this, I've spoken to some people, and by research I mean the survey, right? Um, why they hang about is A, they'll like the program, they know the progression is coming up, and they can choose what they'll be working on. They've got one or two other things they want to work on, like arms and toning, and legs, and and bum, and and you know, upper body and posture and and all that type of stuff that they haven't quite gotten around to, quite gotten around to in the first three months yet. Um, so then that's why they hang around. And they know, or women know, that they're gonna have a child uh again in the next couple of years. So they hang around and they pay the the 40 pounds, 40 pounds, 50 dollars, yeah, for 40 pounds, um over the course of the the next like five months, and they get lifetime access. Right, so that never disappears. Now, what I always say, you could just copy paste the first three months if it if you were that way inclined. I don't mind, I don't care. Right? Uh it doesn't cost me a penny, the stuff is already online. Um so if you want to copy paste that, then then you copy paste that and and and and you run with that, and then a couple of years later you can come back to it. But you know, you need to then remember where you stored it and all that sort of stuff. So people throw me the 40 pounds. They're like, hey Pete, thank you very much. Here's the 40 quid. Uh, and I get lifetime access or 50 bucks, right? Um, but that first three months, that is the essential bit. That's the bit every woman in the world who needs it should have access to. And that's why that's why it's free for three months. You shouldn't have to pay for that. I think the the the one of the things we should try to do whenever possible is lower the entry, um lower the barriers to um getting people good professional guidance with regards to injury, rehab, and health and fitness and stuff. There's only so much we can do, of course, right? I'm a face-to-face personal trainer as well, and you know, I have bills to pay. So that's what I do. But I'm fundamentally not an online coach. I just have a program that is online. Um, and uh really it's not that expensive to run a website in the way it costs a lot of money, don't get me wrong. But there's there's because there's people behind it, but but if I did it all myself on the cheap cheap, it's it's not is not remarkably expensive if you don't want uh right. I just want it to wash its face. That's kind of what what healthy postnatal body is about, anyways. That's enough plugging of that. So, like I said, Disarcta is nothing to worry about. Four out of 80% of cases heal themselves. The same for pelvic girdle pain. Pelvic girdle pain is is not that it heals itself, but pelvic girdle pain is painful and it sucks. Don't get me wrong, but it's eminently fixable. So that means you don't need to be scared of it. When something is eminently fixable, when you can just say, Oh, I'll get some physiotherapy or I'll do the right exercises and that will sort it out, it is nothing to be a scared to be afraid of. It's nothing to be scared of, nothing you should be scared into buying a program for. It really, it really just isn't. Pelvic girdle, I don't know anybody, unless you had a severe injury. I always put that little caveat in, otherwise you get the emails. But I don't know anybody who's had pelvic girdle pain at at a level that could not be addressed by a really good physio. The problem is, of course, whether you have access to really good physio or not, or whether you can afford to do that again. Uh lower the barriers, right? But it's and and it all these things tend to be you know, if you're if you're part of say the NHS, and the NHS is is better than it used to be for some stuff, but if you need to get referred to a physio, that can take a little while. And you don't get enough sessions. And I I get all that, but fundamentally the problem can be fixed, so therefore you don't need to be scared into buying something. You might well need to buy something, but you don't have to be scared into buying something, and that is quite often how people sell postpartum stuff. Same for back pain. I don't know anybody with postpartum back pain that is where where I can't fix that in a few sessions. Right? It might take a little time, but the few sessions are about educating you and how to how to do things properly. I've worked with people for six sessions, five, six sessions, because that's all they could afford face to face. And we completely put them on the right path to to fixing their back pain. We usually then, if you can only afford five, so to speak, we don't do one once a week, we usually do the beginning one. Um so not the introduction session, right? We do uh I don't really do introductor sessions, we do one proper one, then a week later I see you again to make sure you're doing it right, and then I see you once a month. And in the meantime, I send you the occasional email saying make sure you stay on top of it and all that type of stuff. But fundamentally, then you're five months later, right? You just get a daily 10-minute routine that can sort these things. It really isn't something to be scared of. Um, and you might have to make some uh minor adjustments in in in in your life with regards to uh how you breastfeed, how you push the the pram and uh the the the buggy and and all that sort of stuff, but again, it's nothing to be afraid of. You don't need to go, oh um I saw that post the other day. Oh postpartum back pain, these are the five things you should be most scared of, these are the top five things you should never do if you have postpartum back pain. There isn't a single thing you should never do if you have postpartum back pain. Tell me the things you should be doing to heal it, right? Because even the things that kind of go against your recovery aren't or that are going to slow down your recovery. You find the same with diastasis recta. In an ideal world, right, you'd live in a nice little petri dish, and you wouldn't need to do anything like heavy lifting, and you could relax, and you could always exhale properly, and you could you know, you wouldn't eat any of the foods that bloat you, and you wouldn't have to push prams up hills and all that sort of type of stuff, and that would speed up your diastasis recovery and would help heal, uh help your postpartum lower back pain, especially, right? If you never needed to push heavy things up a hill. But if you live in an area like Edinburgh, Glasgow, or you know, any sort of hilly area, anything in the mountain in the mountain time zone, sometimes you have to go up a hill. Yeah, it would really help if you didn't carry heavy things, uh yeah, but you know, you have a baby, and that comes with travel systems and all that sort of stuff. So would it help? Yeah, maybe. Or and and here's just a thought you could just you just have to do the things you have to do, and it is the personal trainers or physios or physical therapists or whatever, their job to tell you a how to do it, and b how to do have a routine outside of those activities that help you recover uh postpartum. So if you have diastasis rectile, in an ideal world, you don't hold your breath as you lift and you don't eat foods that bloat, right? Like I said before, a diastastis rectile is caused by internal pressure. That is the only thing that causes diastasis rectile. End of discussion. I don't want to hear anything else from people. So that means that if you want to recover from diastastos rectile, if you if you want to heal that, so to speak, then what you need to do is decrease that pressure at any given moment. Uh, if you if you can, and make sure it doesn't go up too high again, right? Because that will hinder your diastasis rectile recovery bit. The thing is, you can't do it all the time. You just can't. So there's no point in me telling you, don't ever do a plank. You see this a lot. Don't ever do a plank, it's dangerous when you have diastasis rectile. No, it's not. Right? A, that is it really, really just isn't dangerous when you have diastasis recti. Uh you just have to be shown how to do it properly. And that's what a PT should be doing. So it's not a PT should not be scaring you and putting you off certain exercises like crunches, uh, bicycle crunches, oblique exercise, all that type of stuff that people usually go, oh, you can't do this. Don't do leg raises, they're dangerous. No, they're not they're not dangerous, you just have to be shown how to do them properly. And if you can't do a full exercise, if I can't lift a 200 kilogram bar off the ground, I can't do a 200 kilogram deadlift. Right? It's the same with with diastys rectile exercises. If your body isn't ready to do straight leg raises, don't do straight leg raises, right? Remove some of the weight, so to speak. Bend your legs. That's all that is. If I can't lift uh 200 kilograms, and I can't, um right, it's a bit heavy for me. Uh it was 450 pounds, by the way, in uh in American money. Um if I can't lift 450 pounds, I'll lift 350. Can I do that? Yes, awesome. And that's what I do, and then I need to build up to 450 if that is what my goal is. Right? That's how you do any sort of recovery stuff. This stuff, and and I know I'm shooting myself in the foot a little bit, but it's it's not rocket science. I've done this for 10 plus years now. Really, and I like to think I'm quite a clever chappy, but I'm not I I'm pretty good at what I do, but that doesn't mean that this stuff is remarkably complicated or or scary or or anything like that. So instead of being scared into buying something you don't need, just just or indeed, if you're a personal trainer listening to this, instead of being scared as to as to whether you can work with someone who has done a postpartum recovery program of sort, uh, but still has dissects directly, still has some back pain and all sorts of stuff. Yes, you can. It's fine. We need to we need just ask questions, right? It it's it's tempting for personal trainers, uh, for some personal trainers to never ask their clients whether something feels comfortable, or indeed say, um why ask the question, why are you doing things a certain way? Right? It's it's I've I have had it where I had emails from personal trainers that came to me um when a client finished with me and they went back to their their coach and PT and all that sort of stuff, and they asked me, hey, uh my client insists that they do a certain exercise a certain way because you said so. Can you explain your reasoning for that? Yeah, happy to. Absolutely delighted to to answer any sort of questions. Why I'm big on rip uh ribs over hips and all that uh all that type of stuff for postpartum recovery, and to be fair, all all clients. But when you do like things like tricep pushdowns and all that sort of stuff, bench dips, why I heavy lifts, right? For postpartum, if you come to me, you've done the three-month postpartum sort of thing, and and then I send you back to your PT and I say, Whatever you do, do not brace whilst holding a deadlift, whilst doing a deadlift, or whilst squatting or any of that type of stuff. And then your PT says, Yeah, but you can lift heavier when you do a deadlift. They're right. Uh, if you brace, well, they're kind of right, they're also half-wrong, but I'm not going to go into that. That's another half-hour, half-hour episode. Um, but fundamentally, tell your PT to get in touch, right? As a PT, if someone comes to you after having worked with a postpartum physio, you should be able to get in touch with that postpartum physio and just say, hey, uh, what's the deal? We've quite often personal trainers, myself included, are very tempted to tell a PT, uh, to tell a client what to do instead of asking the client, hey, why are you doing this? Especially someone who's worked with somebody before. I find this a really good way to get information from your client. If, for instance, on a bench press, one of my clients will say, uh, when I ask, hey, why is your elbow in that uh what position? It's and then they say, Yeah, it feels more comfortable that way, because if I tuck it in more, my elbow, my uh, my my shoulder hurts, something like that. Okay, right, that's great. That's information. That's information I can use because it means there's an issue in the shoulder that I have to work on a little bit. Uh let's see if we can fix that first. Quite often people are not necessarily aware of why they move a certain way, and I think personal training is just overall um would be very would be better off if they ask the client, hey, why are you doing this? And because well, I had this chat with somebody the other day. Uh we're asking about uh where we spoke about clients with injuries and all that sort of stuff. The amount of clients that do not know that something is isn't working the way it should, or that just forget to tell you about the injury they had uh like 10-15 years ago. I have one client that came to me that was working with me for three years, uh for three months, sorry, and after three months he said, Yeah, by the way, that car crash I had 15 years ago. Like, excuse me, now what car crash? I had a terrible car crash, and this was messed up, and that was messed up, and I okay. That explains it, right? That that explains so many things that was that it was in it made so many things clear that I never would have known. So it's it's worth asking the question. There's no point asking, hey, have you ever been into in a car crash, but just why does this feel better? Why why why are you doing something? And if the answer then is, hey, my old PT taught me to do this, taught me to do this, instead of going, well, the old PT doesn't know what they're talking about, ask the old PT if they're still about, right? I have never had an issue answering client, uh answering emails from other personal trainers that say, hey Pete, how's about XYZ? Or hey, you worked with this guy uh or this woman. Um, why did you tell them to do XYZ? And I can explain it. If you disagree with me, you disagree with me. I mean, half of this stuff is subjective, anyways. The only thing that is not subjective is you that you don't need to be scared of anything to do with postpartum recovery. It really isn't that big of a deal. Anyways, that's me done waffling for another half hour about absolutely nothing. It's amazing what I can talk yank uh yuck about without uh without actually saying anything. You take care of yourself, Peter, at healthypostnatobody.com. I'm back next week with part two of that cycle syncing thing. It's it's great fun. It got really uh it got really funny, I won't say it, right? So uh here's a new bit of music. You take care of yourself. Bye now.
SPEAKER_03:I can see you down again, fall into the ground again. I feel you. Try to fight it on you.
SPEAKER_02:I'll help you light your fire. I'll take your hand, raise you up higher.
SPEAKER_01:You can get a healing mystery, but another better history of feelings, even feelings afraid.
SPEAKER_03:I want you to turn back now, even if you're down and out of your head, and I'm here I hope you like your fire.
SPEAKER_02:I'll take your hand, raise your