Helping Moms Recover from Pregnancy
Pregnancy can really affect a mom’s body. The growing baby creates engineering issues: As the belly goes forward the back and pelvis have to shift and the feet have to adjust. Some mom’s bodies are changed forever. Prenatal massage can help a mom relax and integrate her changing body into her experience, and also make moms more comfortable during labor, the postpartum massage can help rehabilitate the new mom body. Here are a few ways how!
Emotional Adjustments and Healing
- Exhilaration and Exhaustion
- Disappointments and Grieving
- “Baby Blues”
- Postpartum Depression
- Relationship and Self Image
A postpartum massage will help reflect and normalize the new mom’s experience through active listening, emotional clearing, and care, especially during the first 6 weeks postpartum. This is very important because moms will often feel isolated during this time when baby is constantly feeding and napping. A home visit massage will help meet her where she is, and make her feel better, too! Baby can lie in with mom on the table so mom can get the care she needs.
Physiological Adjustments and Healing
- Understanding postpartum pain and discomforts
A full body Swedish massage is recommended the first week postpartum to help with fluid retention and clearing. If the mother has had a cesarean section (currently 20-40% of births), the therapist can educate about incision and scare care. Any massage on the stomach is contraindicated for 6 weeks. The should be no leg massage until 6 weeks postpartum as well. One well known way to help a mom recover in Germany is a kind of connective tissue massage that works to facilitate organ healing. While this kind of massage can be uncomfortable at times, it can be very healing.
Many women suffer from separation of the diastasis recti or abdominal muscles. A perinatal massage therapist is trained to evaluate any separation and teach special exercises to help mom restore her stomach completely.
Careful attention to the muscles of the stomach and the core muscles along the spine can aid the mom in recovering full range of motion and strength. Trigger point massage is often indicated for the upper right quandrant of the stomach. Where the baby lay during the last trimester can also need special attention with deep tissue techniques for the back. Massage can help with any strains from pregnancy and labor and delivery. And a massage can help with neck and arm strain from constant feeding and holding a new baby.