A very common question that I have when patients return for their postpartum visit is, “will my body ever return back to normal shape?” I tell them that it takes time – it’s very dependent on what her level of fitness was before, and what her level of motivation is now; in addition to the time that she had spend to dedicate to doing that.
For some women the return is immediate; they were fit before, they lost an incredible amount of weight already – post-delivery, and now they just have to resume what their bodies were used to before. And the woman who’s never been challenged; she’s not been fit and she wants to take that on, it takes a very regimented program of diet and fitness combined with potential people at home that can motivate her.
Her partner, a trainer that formally will do that ,a dietician who can do that for her. So, it’s really based on what the person is before pregnancy and what she is after. There’s no timeframe – I myself, jokingly say it’s taken me 14 years to get to where I want to be, but for every woman is different.
The most common complaints that I get from women that return in their 6 weeks postpartum visit as to how they are feeling really physically is just the joint discomfort. They have a lot of back, knee, abdominal discomfort still; an incredible amount of pressure from the delivery itself.
C-section deliveries may be slightly different, but those women are healing from their incision and they may have incisional discomfort. But the majority of women it’s back and pelvic pressure, and the inability to feel like they’ve got any core muscle strength, which has been strained even when it’s not a vaginal birth. A C-section delivery will stress and strain your core.