Postnatal exercise and bouncing back, with Hollie Grant

Our culture surrounds us with pressure to look a certain way and be a certain way, and no more so than after pregnancy. The focus on whether you ‘bounce back’ after birth can be overwhelming. 

My guest this week challenges us instead to focus on postnatal rehab, functional movement and enjoyment. Hollie Grant is a Pilates PT and founder of The Bump Plan. Together we talk about when you can start moving your body after birth, where to start if it’s been a while, and what to look out for in your body to ensure that you don’t go too far too quickly.

Find out more at www.thebumpplan.com
Follow The Bump Plan on Instagram @thebumpplan and Hollie @thepilatespt

Please subscribe, rate and review, so we can get this vital info to as many parents-to-be as we can!

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Transcript

Megan Rossiter  00:00

Ad - This episode is brought to you in partnership with iCandy. I've been using our iCandy peach pushchair almost daily for the last seven years and counting. And I've really put their five year warranty to the test using it for both my boys on muddy walks in aeroplane holes in and out of my car boot and aside from being completely filthy, my fault not theirs. It's still going strong. I can't wait to tell you more about my experience with eye candy later in the show. 

Megan Rossiter  00:29

You're listening to the Birth-ed podcast. I'm your host and founder of Birth-ed, Megan Rossiter. If you're looking for the evidence, the nuance the detail that's missing from your antenatal appointment, then I've got your back. The Birth-ed podcast is here to help you sort the facts from the advertising the instinct from the influences and the information you're looking for from the white noise of the internet. I hope you've got a cup of tea in hand and a notepad at the ready. Let's dive in. 

Megan Rossiter  00:55

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Birth-ed podcast. Today I am delighted to be joined by Hollie Grant. Hollie is an award winning Pilates expert, experienced personal trainer and pre and postnatal exercise specialist and author of the bump plan. With over a decade's experience Hollie has taught 1000s of women across the globe through her online platform, The Pilates PT on demand and through his hugely successful online pre and postnatal fit this platform the bump plan since launching in December 2020. The Bump Plan online has helped over 35,000 women stay active during pregnancy and after birth and is recognised as the leading pre and postnatal fitness plan here in the UK. Hollie is also a mum to two children. The Bump Plan that was prenatal was filmed throughout her own pregnancy, giving members a unique opportunity to grow alongside her. Hollie has also been a huge advocate for improving the fitness industries offering for women leading the way to create an anti diet culture grounded brand. And it takes a feminist approach to all of the services she offers. So that is going to form the kind of very, very start of the conversation that we are having today. So Hollie, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the podcast.

Hollie Grant  02:10

Oh, you're welcome. What a pleasure to be on it.

Megan Rossiter  02:13

So we today in today's episode are starting to look at and kind of think about something that we would refer to as the bounce back culture. So the idea that women are expected to get back to their kind of pre natal pre pregnancy selves, as quickly as possible as soon as their baby has been born. The quicker this happens, the better they're doing is the sort of message that we're still receiving here in 2024. So should we just kind of start with a background around this? Like, how did we get here? I feel like it wouldn't have been like this in Victorian times, surely. So where did where does it? Where did it start? And how have we found ourselves here?

Hollie Grant  02:58

I think it's basic, first of all, it's disgusting. It's awful. It's so everywhere. You know, I see it in the way that people advertise Fitness Plans, I see it in the way that we are spoken to as new moms, you know, the language that people use, even in doctor's appointments, you know, it's everywhere, it's really hard to avoid. So the first thing to say is if you're someone who does feel this immense pressure to bounce back, know that that's totally understandable. You know, even if we think of magazines with a circle of shame, and the way that we talk about celebrities who have bounced back and put them on a pedestal, you know, it's so easy to be swayed by that. So it's really understandable if women are feeling pressured to bounce back, even if they feel like they've got really thick skin. And a lot of it just comes down to kind of diet culture and how pervasive that is, and how everywhere that also is, and also things like fat bias, because essentially what we're saying is, when we think of bounce back coaching, we're saying to women, you've gained weight whilst you've grown a baby. And we've all been on your side. And we've been saying how wonderful you look whilst you get bigger and grow this wonderful bump. Now the baby's here, we want you to hurry up and lose all of that weight. And we want you to look as if you never actually grew a child again. And a lot of that is down to fat phobia and fat bias where there is so much in our culture that tells us that if we are fat, or if we've gained weight, it's because we're lazy. And there are so many awful stereotypes associated with gaining weight or being in a bigger body. And so it all kind of comes to a nasty head once you've had a baby. And so I think we maybe internalise that now I've had a baby, I should be getting out there. And if this celebrity is able to look amazing again within months of having a baby, so should I and if I don't it's because I'm somehow failing at being a mom or being a woman. And it's really awful and it's really untrue and unobtainable as well. 

Megan Rossiter  04:54

Yeah, I think one of the things that I found, like hardest to get my head around pay sneakily wasn't, I did gain weight when I was pregnant, like the vast majority of people do. But it was it was almost more that my body had completely changed shape, like the actual bone structure of my body, like your ribs get bigger and potentially don't go back, your hips change shape, obviously, your stomach is likely to change shape, my feet grew like a size and never went back. And it's all of that, that you that's the kind of conversation that we don't get. And it's the trying to get back into old clothes. And it's like, actually, even if you weighed the same amount on scales, your body looks different the things that you're doing with your body by different to the things that you did before you had children. And there's Yeah, there's definitely a conflict there isn't there enter in terms of just how much pregnancy and giving birth changes your physical makeup, literally how it feels to be in your body.

Hollie Grant  05:55

Yeah, all those things that you listed like actually do happen as well, my ribcage does expand, and it has to do that to make space for your baby. So it expands in all directions. And we can get something which we call rib flare. And it's like your ribcage literally expands to make space and to mean that you can still continue to use your diaphragm muscle to breathe and your uterus can come up and make room that happens your feet do get bigger, and they don't tend to get smaller afterwards, you know, so there are so many things that can happen and skin stretches. And I think we need to be really honest and open about the fact that your body will forever change, you will always be postnatal, but everything else in your life has changed as well. Like you're never gonna get a fantastic night's sleep again, because you'll always be kind of listening out for a little personal, being aware that there's another person in the house that might need you overnight, you know, everything else in your life changes. So why would we your mental health changes the way you view the world changes? So why would we not talk about the fact that your body changes, and it will change for good. But that is also okay, that's life. That's just the ebb and flow of life. It's just the new season of your life. And we need to talk about that more so that it's not such a shock. When women are looking in the mirror after they've had a baby and thinking I do not recognise the body that's looking back at me.

Megan Rossiter  07:16

It's like we sort of anticipate and expect it at adolescence, like when you go from being a child to being a teenager, eventually into kind of an adult body. We support our children through that, I would say more maybe maybe more than a few generations ago. But it is certainly unexpected and hopefully not too shameful experience. Yet, the body does a similar thing when you go through pregnancy and have a baby. But there is still this narrative that it that should then go back to 19 years 19 year old body and look exactly the same. 

Hollie Grant  07:52

What's sad as well on that note, is that it's women that get the most pressure, I'm not saying men don't have pressure on them to look a certain way. That's definitely grown over the years. But let's be completely honest, it's women whose bodies are discussed most and are told to look a certain way. And it's us that are mainly targeted by diet culture, yet, we are the ones who have so many significant hormonal changes throughout our body that are going to change the way our body looks like you listed, you know, starting to have periods and boobs and you know, and bodily hair and things like that coming in during puberty, things like having babies being postnatal, when we hit the menopause, our bodies are going to change again. So it's so strange when actually men, their bodies don't tend to change a huge amount across their life other than just age. But for us, we have hormones and all sorts of things going on that are going to mean our bodies change and Ebb and Flow. Yet we're the ones that are supposed to still look like our 16 year old self when we're 50. And it's just bonkers.

Megan Rossiter  08:52

Yeah, absolutely. It's like, it's as if the body is kind of celebrated during pregnancy. And then it's something that we have to hide the minute that the baby is born, because the focus goes to the baby being amazing. And your job is now apparently over. So we're not celebrated in such the same way. So what would you say in terms of not bouncing back because that isn't the right term, but recovering postnatally our bodies do need to recover from the fact that they have grown an entire human baby birth and entire human baby in one way or another. If you could kind of change the entire culture of postnatal world, where would you want to see the focus of that recovery?

Hollie Grant  09:35

Hmm, I think first of all, as with anyone taking part in exercise, or you know, anything like that, I'd always want people to focus on how their bodies are performing rather than how they look. And I know that's really difficult, but slowly, we can sort of change that narrative in our own minds. If we're constantly thinking about our bodies almost as a machine that we're trying to service Actually and, and make last a long time rather than make them look sexy and small and thinner. And so postnatally, then what we really want to think about is, it's almost like, we always say that during pregnancy, it's like the longest marathon you're ever going to run, right? It's relentless, it's gets harder and harder, it's really long. And then labour is kind of like the finale of it. And then postnatally what we really need to do is kind of rehab and recover. And so I think we all miss need to see our bodies. As much as I like to promote how much we can do as women, I want you to remember that it's it's almost a little bit like having an injury postnatally and so much that we need to rest at first and recover and allow our bodies time to recuperate from the big event that was pregnancy and labour. And then we almost need to sort of rehab our bodies before we go gung ho. And I think what's happened is there's been this really strange rumour or myth, I guess, that you can't do anything postnatally until you've seen your doctor at your six to eight week checkup. But any of us that have had that doctor's appointment? Probably no, unless you're really lucky that you're probably not getting much of a look in most of it's about the baby. I had sepsis. And I had an emergency caesarean, and they didn't even look at my scar, I had to say, Would you mind just taking a look and checking it looks? Okay. So what happens is that people do nothing until that six to eight week checkup. And then they're like, they asked the doctor, can I exercise? The doctors like, yeah, I guess, because it's not their area of expertise, they can't know everything. And so then people go back to doing what they did before, and they miss out that sort of rehab bit. So what we say and what the bunk plan really promotes is that you can actually do stuff every six to eight weeks checkup if you want to. And there are things that you should do that almost rehab your body and get you back to being a bit more conditioned. So that then you can start adding in the things that you did pre pregnancy or that you enjoy. So how that would look is for example, in that first week, depending on how you gave birth slightly, or you know how long or traumatic your birth was, you might want to just completely do nothing. And I would definitely promote that, you know, rest, relax, get used to being with your baby tell visitors to bugger off, you know, you just want to be on your own. But you can start doing things like pelvic floor exercises, as soon as you've given birth, as long as you don't have a catheter in yet doing those pelvic floor exercises, even if you didn't have a vaginal birth, even if you had a caesarean birth, because you had a heavy baby and a heavy uterus bearing down on that pelvic floor through the whole of your pregnancy. So it's gone under a huge amount of strain, you can also start doing things like gentle deep core activation. So just stimulating your course it's things like imagining that you're doing up some some jeans or doing up a little belt. So starting to just kind of get that awareness back to your abdominals. Because actually postnatally often we feel like everything's just switched off, you know, like, I can't even feel my abdominals. And then over the next kind of few weeks, you can also stick think about doing things like gentle stretching, because you're in the same position an awful lot with a new baby, no matter how you feed yet, we're both like pushing our shoulders. 

Megan Rossiter  13:12

You know what I was in the park the other day, and I saw these two mums who had, they were not quite sitting up baby, so probably like five months old. And I was sitting there with my three year old who was like running around and I was sitting there nicely with my cup of tea and he was just entertaining himself. And I looked at them and I was like, I remember how painful I felt like and it was just from feeding him and count like he wasn't he was heavy now, but it wasn't big enough to kind of hold his own way. I should remember like my upper back and my shoulders. Just constantly aching because you're just like lugging around this dead weight child aren't you? Yeah, and breastfeeding and that kind of hunched and even bottle feeding just carrying a baby and at sharing and like sort of contorting yourself into these positions as you sleep so you don't wake them so they feel safe. Like there is Yeah, you get really stiff and really uncomfortable, don't you? 

Hollie Grant  14:08

You do everything is looking down at them understandably like even when they cuddle you know when they're asleep in your arms. You're looking down at them because you are so in admiration of them but everything's looking down so like the back of your neck, your upper traps your shoulders, you're in a very hunched over position. So do some gentle stretching, you know move your body into a different position, particularly if you've had a caesarean because I think that we're really we can get really nervous that the scars understandably, and so we end up hunching over even more to protect it. But when we when our when skin heals, when scars heal, we want them to be able to move we want those scars to heal in a functional way. We don't want them to heal very tight and grippy because then when you do try and move in other positions which are going to with the baby, you know that scar is not used to that position. So do some gentle stretching and breath work as well you can do in Those first few weeks, which is where really what we should do when we breathe is use our diaphragm muscle to breathe in. And when we do that our ribcage expands on the inhale in all directions, and our pelvic floor lengthens, and it naturally naturally stretches. And then when we breathe out, the diaphragm relaxes, is pushed out of the lungs, and our pelvic floor comes back to normal. But during pregnancy, our diaphragm finds it really difficult to contract down because your uterus is in the way. So you find towards the end of pregnancy, very short of breath. I remember whenever I did a podcast or anything at the end of pregnancy, I just was sounded constantly out of breath. And so your diaphragm almost like gets a bit lazy is not very fair. And it because it struggles to do its job. It's not, it's not lazy. But um, postnatally, what we want to do is like start using that diaphragm muscle, again, really taking nice big deep breaths in allowing that pelvic floor to move with the breath. And then as we exhale, the pelvic floor is coming back to normal. And it also stimulates your rest and digest system, which most new parents are gonna need, because we're so stressed and anxious. So actually, you've got your pelvic floor exercises you can do before your six week checkup, you've got gentle stretching, you can do you got breath work, you've got deep core activation, if you want to. And all of those things can be started as soon as you feel comfortable to do them. And it just means that then when you are a bit further down the line and you are feeling comfortable, you want to maybe go for a walk, you maybe want to baby carry or you want to start thinking about jogging, you will miss done a bit of rehab first to prep your body for what's to come. 

Megan Rossiter  16:31

Yeah, there's also the, the sort of don't do anything, don't lift anything heavier than your baby that chat that the spiel that people often kind of get postnatally is sort of like, you're all very well and good if you've got lots of support around you. And you don't have to do anything for five or six weeks. But there are people who have got older children. And there's only two weeks paternity leave and or other parental leave, and they've got to do school runs, and they got to pick up their toddler. And it's like, actually, that movement, that lifting the day to day movement for a lot of people is still going to happen. So you know, I'm very keen to promote having as restful a full of trimester as you possibly can. If you can spend plenty of time kind of in bed and on the safe and really prioritising just kind of bonding with your baby. Absolutely. But there is still what you'd call functional movement that happens day to day in your life, where you do need to move your body and when we sort of make out as if postnatal women are this very fragile, breakable sort of thing. But we're not doing anything actually to protect them or help them either. Then we Yeah, we're sort of leaving women in this position of like, oh, hang on, am I am I allowed to do this, and we've kind of tried to outsource that permission to do things, rather than actually just listening to our own bodies. 

Hollie Grant  17:53

Postnatally it's really disempowering. And it also makes it very difficult for people to know what they shouldn't shouldn't feel, particularly with things like scars. But also, I think, because of the awful narrative about you must exercise to lose weight all the time, or you must exercise because you got a wedding coming up or because you, you know, you look like you had a baby recently, I think sometimes we forget the discussion around actually, you know, fiscal activities really, really important for your mental health. And so if you've had a really bad night with a baby, or you have been stuck at home, you know, let's be honest, it can be really lonely being a mum, you're never alone, but you're often lonely. You know, it's so difficult to make plans with friends because you just don't know where they go. baby's going to be awake or asleep and and getting in the car. It's such a faff. So actually, your world becomes really, really small. And so by telling women not to do anything, and you know, don't exercise and be careful, don't walk too far, you're really making people's worlds even smaller. And if you've had a really bad night's sleep, sometimes the best thing that you can do is just put the baby in the buggy and just go for a walk. They might sleep you get some fresh air, who knows you might have been able to like call a friend or go via a cafe. And I just think it's it's really unfair to scare women so much don't do anything at the beginning. But then as soon as you're allowed to, you need to hurry up and lose that baby weight. We're just missing out on the whole mental health benefits that people get that they really need as new moms because it's really difficult being a new parent. So yeah, I just think we just need to be talking more about all the other benefits to it so that people think are you know what, actually I do feel really low right now maybe a walk will make me feel better, rather than Yeah, this narrative of do it because you need to hurry up and lose weight.

Megan Rossiter  19:40

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Megan Rossiter  20:53

The kind of conversation we've had, if you're the kind of person that likes to exercise and you're used to exercising, you go right, can I exercise before that six week check, I'm really keen to get back to it. A lot of people and I would include myself in this group would be like, I have absolutely no interest in exercising in the first six weeks after the baby's born. Thank you very much. But again, similarly, because we are sold the idea that exercise should make us sweat, it should make us tired, we should be really stretching ourselves, potentially it's not that enjoyable in a lot of ways because it feels hard and it feels uncomfortable. And you can end up going it's another thing on the already too long list of things that I am supposed to do. As a mum, while my partner is on back at work. And I'm at home with two kids, one of them needs packed lunch every day for nursery they've got to get there, they got to do this. They've got to breastfeed this baby only breastfeed that doesn't take a bottle, this long list of stuff that I do Oh, I can yeah, I've got to do the bloody exercise plan at eight o'clock once they're in bed. How can you flip that? How can you start to go a prioritise yourself that but be? How can you get that physical activity and the benefits of that physical activity into your life? If you're not chomping at the bit to go for a jog?

Hollie Grant  22:11

Yeah, I get it, I get it. Because, you know, I'm very aware, I'm in a very privileged position that this is my job, you know, and I also, you know, work with my husband, so I have child care, you know, and but in those first few weeks, what I, what I really loved, and what I think is totally underrated, is that the right word, you know, not celebrated enough or not just whatever is walking, I literally would, you know, initially I would just push it around in the buggy, you know, just to get some fresh air. And like I said, you know, call a friend, maybe and just have a peace, some peace and quiet. And then eventually, I would put him in the baby carrier, and I would go for walks. And then I would drive somewhere, you know, which was I'm really lucky where I live, I live near the coast, but I would go there, and I would, you know, my daily activity would be going for a walk with Him in the baby carrier. And then I would build up the distances and stuff. And, you know, for me, I really loved it because it was free. I could do it anytime in the day. You know, I used it for nap time. So when you needed to get sleep anywhere, but like you know what I might as well like, while he's asleep, I don't just want to be sat there and stuck at home while he's napping. I'll use the walk. So I think and then I would meet up with friends or I would go to a cafe sort of seeing other human beings I wasn't lonely. So I think that sometimes it's like you said it is reframing it that doesn't necessarily have to be that you're going to postnatal fitness class, it doesn't necessarily mean mean that you have to get on your spin bike or anything like that we need to think about exercise, actually is physical activity, right. So we use the term physical activity to describe any form of activity that gets your body moving. And that can be going for a walk, it can be housework, which I really don't want you doing if you're a new mom, just just leave the house work for someone else. But you know, it could be housework, it could be gardening, it could be sets, you know, it could be anything gets your heart rate up, it can also be something structured like a Pilates class or you know, postnatal fitness. But it can be anything. And I think once we remember that, and we remind ourselves, it doesn't have to be that we're sweating, like you said are that we're burning loads of calories, it's just moving your body, it suddenly becomes much easier to fit in what we're building up to which by the way, postnatally, we're trying to build back up to 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity. So that's any form of activity that gets your heart rate up a little bit, but where you could still talk, so it doesn't need to be like here, it doesn't need to be sprinting. It can be anything gets your heart rate up a little bit and it can look like anything and most importantly, please choose something you enjoy. So if you hate spinning, if you hate walking like I've described, that's not the right form of physical activity for you find something else that will be something that you enjoy, hopefully, and life's too short to be sat on a spinning bike if you hate spinning.

Megan Rossiter  24:59

Yeah Absolutely. And I think that there are so many types of exercises that sometimes you've got to keep trying keep trying things until you actually find something that you do enjoy. And then obviously, you do have the barrier, often postnatally of Damn, there's a baby that that's to come with me or somebody needs to be looking after the baby for you to go. But I did find that this is, by the by because I didn't, my second baby was born in lockdown. So there were no classes or anything. But I wasn't the kind of mom that wanted to sing Nursery Rhymes and wave bells in my baby's face. But there was in my first pregnancy, like a walking group that was like people would just walk with their buggies around the park, and then go to the pub. And I was like, Yes, I am on board with this exercise activity, a walk and sit in a pub on a Tuesday morning. And so it's sort of finding those things, or if they don't exist, just like sticking a note up in a Facebook group and being like, just anybody else not wanting to wave bells in their baby's face and would prefer to go for a walk in a coffee. And it does you often, you know, it feels vulnerable to do that. But what's the worst that would happen? No one would reply, your life is just kind of goes on. Yeah, so definitely finding something you enjoy and going kind of gently. The other thing that I sort of wanted to share from a kind of personal perspective is we sort of mentioned that you're, you're ultimately postnatal forever once you have had a baby. And within that, sort of recognising that it's never too late to start exercising in some way. I think after both of my kids, it took me probably about a year and a half after my first and almost three years after my second before I really felt like I had any headspace to do something that felt like it was for me or that I had space to leave them or space to kind of and so it wasn't until that period really after both of them that I returned to any kind of proper exercise. If somebody is listening, and they're like, God, I had a baby like years ago, where would you kind of recommend starting starting at the very, very kind of basics? Is it is the body still that postnatal or going to non postnatal classes? Or what would you kind of do if you're kind of starting at that point?

Hollie Grant  27:23

Yeah, it's a really good point. So um, basically when we were creating the bump on postnatal, that we spoke to lots of different experts you know, about what they would love from a postnatal plan. So for example, we spoke to Emma Brockwell, who's public health video that we work with a lot. And we were like, if there was a postnatal plan that you wanted to send people to what do you wish that it was like, and she was like, I need it to be that it takes people all the way through to being able to like run marathons again, because often postnatal plans, they stopped too short. You know, they they're just like, really specific niche where you have at the beginning, and then they send people off too early. And then we spoke to other people, actually pregnancy foundational sorts of people. And what was coming out as well, from lots of questions that we get from people signing up, as well as, like, I'm two years postnatal, I had a baby two years ago, like, is the plan for me, you know, should I be doing this? So we have to really think about how can we make sure that the postnatal plan is for everyone. And so what we did was we made it seems like a phased approach, and people could join at any point, because that's the thing when you're training postnatally, you almost need to think, okay, so if I'm really early days, I need to be thinking about recovery. And what's in our phase one, as well as like that rehab, you know, strengthen with pelvic floor getting the core moving. But there are people who are further down the line who are not as fragile who've been, like, kept picking up toddlers, you know, they're heavy, or carrying heavy babies that are much further along that maybe don't need that, like really nice rehab, but they do still just need to be getting an awareness of how their pelvic floor feels when they're lifting heavy weights, or, you know, if they've got some diastasis left, which we can talk about if you like, you know, so I think that no matter where you are postnatally if you have not done any rehab, if you've not done any exercise, and it's like two years later, I would definitely try and find something postnatal to start with, where you can just kind of learn some of the terminology around like pressure management, or understand, you know, does my pelvic floor feel okay? Rather than going straight into what you did before, like going for a 10k run or something, and then suddenly finding that you're leaking, or you feel like a heaviness or bulging in your vagina, which could be a prolapse. I think it's yeah, it's definitely worth no matter where you are postnatally if you've not done any form of rehab, to try to start with something that's postnatal and don't be upset or don't compare if there are people there who are much younger like earlier in their postnatal journey, you know, don't feel bad that your two year It's lighter. Because you're doing the right thing, you got to set the foundations first make sure that your body feels rehabbed enough before you then start going to kind of non postnatal, if you can. And I'm very aware, it depends where you live, you know, there might some people live in areas where there's not a huge postnatal offering. But some, yeah, I would still consider yourself postnatal if you've done nothing. And you're kind of two, three years postnatal.

Megan Rossiter  30:23

Yeah, absolutely. And so the bump plan that you've run, people can come into that and just kind of start at the you doesn't see if there isn't something kind of locally, you don't, I definitely felt almost a sort of like nervousness to go to stuff in person when you're like, Oh, I'm not. There is that awful? Like, really, really ridiculous narrative that's in kind of health and fitness, that it's like health and fitness for people that are healthy and fit. And so then going when you're like, oh, I don't think I'm going to be able to kind of keep up can feel quite daunting. And that's when the kind of options of things that you could potentially start from your own home, does break down a little bit of that barrier, do you think? 

Hollie Grant  31:06

Yeah, and people will often like apologise, they'll be like, I'm really sorry, like my baby's like two years old. But I haven't done anything yet. And I'm like, it's not a bad thing. It's not there's something to be apologising for, like, this is incredible that you are coming, you know that you are still that you recognise that you are still postnatal, and you do need to just be mindful that you did give birth to a baby, whether it was two years ago, you know, two days ago. So yeah, I can completely get why people might be nervous about that. But no, the instructors are just grateful that you're there, no matter how postnatal you are.

Megan Rossiter  31:40

And you mentioned as you were kind of describing there some of the suppose common complexities, I suppose that you would take into account when you are returning to exercise or starting exercise postnatally. Things like diastasis, or prolapse or C section recovery, or even like tearing or pelvic floor damage can all impact what it feels like to move your body again, postnatally. What are the kind of considerations that you should be taking or things that you might want to be aware of when you are going back to that, in terms of how your pregnancy or birth or complications might then impact that postnatal recovery? 

Hollie Grant  32:17

Yeah, it's a good question. Because I think, understandably, when people are pregnant, they'll often worry that they're going to do something that might harm their baby, and then postnatally, they're worried they're going to do something that's going to harm themselves, totally understandable. And so I think one of the reasons people don't get back to moving their bodies again, so they're not really sure what the warning signs are, if they're doing too much, or something wrong. So let's cover the first thing is kind of like things that you might notice that would give you a heads up, you're probably moving too quickly, like you're doing too much too soon. And a really quite easy one to monitor is, you know, with your lochia vaginal bleeding postnatally. In theory over time, that should slowly start to get less, until eventually it stops altogether. If you're doing too much, too soon, what you'll probably notice is that all of a sudden, it will increase again, or you'll get more of it, or it might be a slightly different colour, that would normally be a sign that you've done too much too quickly. And so I find that's a really easy one for people to monitor in those early days. Also, some other warning signs are things like scars, Caesarean or vaginal or tears, feeling more sore post movement, or post exercise, you know, if they look different, if they are more sore, if they are weeping, you know, anything like that, again, you're probably moving too quickly. You need to scale it back, do less. And then another one is like feeling very exhausted. Obviously, we know we're tired, postnatally. But it's like, if you find post movement, you like bone crushing, you're tired, or very, very achy. Again, just scale it back, there's no rush, you know, maybe take a few days off. And then next time, if it was that you went for 10 minute walk, maybe do five minutes next time. But I think you know, knowing some of those warning signs to look out for just frees you up a little bit and it helps you feel a bit more empowered to know that you're doing the right thing. And then some of those things that you mentioned. So diastasis I'll try not to talk too long on these because there can be almost a whole podcast episode diastasis is essentially if you think about your tummy, think about your abdominal muscles, your six pack abdominal muscles. I like to think of them almost like two strips of bacon down the front of your tummy. And they don't connect directly to each other, they connect to a piece of tissue called the linea alba. Now during pregnancy, you probably noticed that that tissue down the middle of your tummy went darker. It's like a line down your middle. Now when you're pregnant and your bump grows, those two six pack muscles they're strips of bacon start to move away from each other to help your bump grow. And so that tissue between them thins and stretches almost like when you blow up a balloon and That is diastasis. And it is totally normal and common during pregnancy. In fact, studies show that by the time you give birth 100% of women will have some level of diastasis by that point, because that is needed to grow bum postnatally, by kind of like up to a year, two thirds of people with diastasis, it's just gone back to normal or some level of normal, just by itself and for a third of women, and we don't know why it doesn't. And they might still have some separation of those muscles and the thinness to that linea alba. And so what that will look like is if you did a crunch, or a plank, or something that really increases the pressure in your core, you might notice that down the middle of your tummy, it goes really pointy and hard. And you can see the pressure that's in your core, pushing through that gap. And that's diastasis, essentially. So again, it's relatively common, you know, third of women will still have it after a year. And there's lots that you can do to support your you can still do lots of things, it doesn't mean that you can never do a plank ever again. But I would definitely say that if you're noticing that postnatally Speak to your doctor asked to be referred to a pelvic health physio? Or do you have a postnatal plan that discusses things like pressure management, so you understand how to train your core, you know, exercise safely get stronger without putting loads of aggressive pressure through that healing tissue. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. If we're to talk about diastasis, without like making people nervous, if you see some level of domain, don't panic, it's more just if you know you're further down the line, you're finding that whenever you do even like getting out of bed, you're noticing loads and loads of hard Daming pushing through that midline, it might be worth asking to be referred to a physio who can then give you some advice on how to work with a diastasis. And prolapse is similar. So prolapse is essentially where one or more of your pelvic organs have dropped, slipped down into the vagina, because the pelvic floor is struggling to support them. And it's more common if you've had if you've been pregnant, because of obviously, the pressure on your pelvic floor. It's more common, if you've had a vaginal birth, probably for obvious reasons, you know, your baby has passed through your pelvic floor, there might be some level of trauma to the pelvic floor. And it's usually felt as a heaviness or a bulging in the vagina, or you might actually see some poking out from your vagina. And again, it's about working out how to manage those symptoms, how much exercise can I do without making those symptoms worse, does running make it feel worse, in which case, maybe do something different, and strengthening that pelvic floor. So it's difficult because we're not taught these things at school, you know, as girls, we're not taught about our pelvic floor or anything like that. So it's really difficult because as an adult, we might be really learning anatomy only now, and when things are almost have already happened. But I would say overall, it's just about learning how your body should feel what feels normal. And if you're ever worried, asking your GP to either have a look or refer you to a pelvic health, physio, base family magician, we call them because they are amazing. And they will sort you right out.

Megan Rossiter  38:16

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that we don't get to have you know that I get this with people preparing for birth. And certainly in terms of postnatal recovery, I'm sure you do as well, almost all of it is new information, which is completely insane. Given that you do have biology lessons at school and you have PSHE lessons and you're like What on earth did I I could I could dissect a plant and tell you all the different parts of the inside of this plant. But until I, you know, started training in midwifery, I probably couldn't have named all of the parts of my own body. And and so you know, when we're supporting women, both in pregnancy and kind of postnatally, you start talking about things and you have to take it right, right, right back to the beginning, because there's so much that we don't know about our bodies, which probably in turn is contributing to the disconnection that we feel from our bodies. And then all of those difficulties that we've talked about, kind of in terms of the expectations around what our bodies are for. Are you noticing, you know, you've been working in this world for a reasonably long time? Are you seeing things improve or change? Or what do you think we should be aware of as parents who are having the next generation of children? What can What do you think we should be doing for our kids so that they don't get to their 20s 30s 40s and face the same stigmas and difficulties that women are facing now?

Hollie Grant  39:45

I think there's probably two two avenues for this. So the first one, I think, definitely encouraging use of correct anatomical terms at home. So vulva instead of you know, like mini or like mine was a Tappan Zee. No, Hall it is. So I think that's one thing but I guess from my angle, which is always about like trying to stop this generational cycle of women feeling like they have to look a certain way all the time is being really mindful of the language we use in front of our children, particularly daughters, around our bodies. I because I'm because of the industry I'm in obviously, I think I'm at the pointy end of the scale, you know, I, I'd probably more, hear it more. But in a typical day, the amount of put downs I hear the women around me giving themselves is so sad. So you know, we might I might I live by the beach, we go swimming in the sea all year round all the time. You know, I might have one woman be like, I, you know, bought that swimming costume that you were wearing the other day, but like, oh, yeah, but like, my tummy looks really fat in it. Or, excuse me, like, Don't mind my stretch marks or haven't waxed, or it's like we're so derogatory to ourselves. And I think we need to a stop doing that. Because if you're saying that you feel fat, and there's somebody in a bigger body near you, and that I think it was that she's smarter than me, and she's fat than I'm fat. I think we have to be careful around our friends, but also definitely in front of our children, and not talk about calories, not talk about how much we weigh not to not put yourself down in front of them, so that they they're not growing up hearing that they should look a certain way or that stretch marks are bad or that hair is bad. So yeah, I think it's just I think it's being, you know, yeah, anatomically correct, but also really thinking about what our children are hearing at home, and then potentially internalising, let's try and just break the cycle that women are supposed to look a certain way. That's the only way we can do it is stop saying it to ourselves and stop saying in front of our friends and family as well. We're just awesome. No matter what we look like, we're epic. So there's a reason like we were trusted to grow and give birth to a baby. And I just think we're just awesome. And I see all these incredible women around me putting themselves down and I just it makes me Yeah, so sad when they don't need to.

Megan Rossiter  42:08

Yeah, absolutely. And interestingly, I think that goes for the compliments that we give ourselves and we give women as well as the kind of things that we might say badly about ourselves, my eldest son till he was six had long, long blonde hair, and if you and was quite intuitive phrase and dresses and leggings, and if you saw him out about you lots and lots of particularly the kind of generation above us would assume that he was a girl. When people thought that he was a girl. The nice things that they said about him were starkly different to when they found out that he was a boy, when he was a boy, he was cool with his long hair. And like he was individual with the style that he was wearing. When he was a girl. He was so sweet. He was so pretty. He was so gentle. He was a nice, like it was it was and it wasn't going from me, but you're like kinda is coming from everywhere. Yeah. And so how. And that's what we would have had as little girls and growing up, that is the message that we would have been receiving from literally every angle. So how can we and I think it's hard to do it for our children until we've done it for ourselves. Have you got anything that people can kind of take away that can help them undo this kind of lifetime of conditioning, that stretch marks tummy fat that they call bad, and start to feel more comfortable in a body that they might now not recognise from their kind of younger selves, or maybe they've always found a difficult body to kind of be in.

Hollie Grant  43:41

I don't know if this helps. But I mean, I've told this story before, I think that if we can be if people like me can be really honest about the realities of some of these celebrities that we put on a pedestal. So it's not something I'm necessarily particularly proud of. But I have worked in this industry for 12 years and I have studio in London. That's purely one to one clients, right? So we get a lot of people who, whose jobs are based on the way they look right? Like Let's call a spade a spade, you know, there are people who, for work do have to snap back quickly because they earn money based on the way that they look. Right? That's sadly the world we live in. But it is by the by. So I given where I work I have over the years had been involved in the process of helping people who need to look like they did before they had a baby for a work role, or rehearsal or or audition or what have you. Right? So let's just be completely honest there. And so I have been part of that massive team that is involved in getting these people to look this way and those teams include, but are not limited to people like me. I But then I will not be the only fitness professional involved in that journey. But there will be a nutritionist who probably usually lives with that person and cooks all of them meals for them and snacks. There'll be a full time nanny involved, who's there for childcare, and potentially the overnight feeds or overnight wake ups. Because rest and recovery is really important. If you're exercising a huge amount, you know, there will be so many people involved in this journey. And that costs a huge amounts. And also, that person has to make a huge amount of sacrifices, ie, they may not get to spend as much time with their new baby as they would like to, they might have to make decisions on how they feed their baby, based on the huge amounts of exercise that person is going to be doing. And whilst it's their choice to make these decisions is also based on the fact there's a huge amount of pressure on them to look a certain way, right? So it costs a lot, it's not necessarily a positive experience, it's going to be really hard work. And it's very few people that can afford this. And so they're the people that we are then seeing in the magazines who are being celebrated for how quickly they bounce back. Oh, my gosh, how amazing does she look? Wow, we are not those people. And we should be really grateful at times that we are not those people, and that we don't have to look a certain way to get hopefully get paid or you know, get a new job in the future. Okay, so we're actually a lot of us are really lucky that there isn't that huge amount of pressure on us. So we should just enjoy the fact that we don't have to do that. And understand that the people we are sometimes comparing ourselves to, we do not need to compare ourselves to them, we will never be able to snap back as quickly as then, because we are not them. Right. So and there's a genetic component here as well. But I guess I just like to just be really transparent as to those people that were sometimes looking up to you and thinking, wow, why is she managed to look like that? And I haven't? Well, you know, sometimes that's why. 

Megan Rossiter  47:05

Yeah, I hope that helps. Yeah, absolutely. Amazing. And so if people would like to join the bunk plan, and it does exist for pregnancy, if you're listening to this pregnant and postnatally, or find out more about you, where should they go?

Hollie Grant  47:19

We have an Instagram page, the bump plan, we share loads and loads of information, advice, exercises, funny memes, you know, all sorts of stuff on there. There's a huge amount of support there. If you are wondering, you know, what are the warning signs of exercising too quickly, all of that lots. So definitely follow us on Instagram at the bump plan. And we have a seven day free trial for any of our plans. There's one if you're trying to get pregnant, there's one if you're pregnant one if you're postnatal, all were filmed in real time. So during my own journey, so we're kind of on this journey together and they're endorsed by the active pregnancy foundation as well so you can be sure that they're safe and they've been really audited. Well you can follow me Holly grant at the Pilates PT. Follow just mum life and life down in Dorset really behind the scenes of what goes on there. But so yeah, I think they're the main ones. 

Megan Rossiter  48:10

I will post links to all of that in the show notes. And just as a sort of side note, I have been lucky enough to have a go at the I've done the postnatal bits of the some of the postnatal bits of the bunk plan. And I was saying to Holly before we recorded it is really brilliant, like the way that it is put together the way that you can how easy it is to kind of access how easy it is to kind of fit in. It is really brilliant, the best that I have found for sure. So Holly, thank you so much for joining me.

Hollie Grant  48:39

You're welcome. And if I can just end with just one last thing as well is that your baby does not care what you look like or what you weigh. Either you are the most important person in their life. And that's such a gift and such a joy. And so just yeah, get rid of the pressure. And just see moving your body as a way of shaking off a bad night's sleep or getting out there and meeting other people. And all the other benefits that come with exercising will come but just put it first as something that you want to do that you enjoy doing. And kind of find that one form of movement that you just let absolutely makes you happy.

Megan Rossiter  49:14

Awesome. I think I'm gonna go for a walk after this. Move my body and then I'll be the rest for the rest of the day. Hey, maybe people are listening to that on a walk. Listen, if you didn't listen to that on a walk, the next episode take yourself for a walk. 

Hollie Grant  49:31

Good idea! Thanks Megan.

Megan Rossiter  49:37

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Birth-ed podcast. It's my actual life mission to get these conversations in front of as many expensive families as possible and you can be a part of this mission. Don't worry, I'm not recruiting you into my cult. But if you leave a five star rating and review of the podcast then we creep up the charts getting more ears, change more births, change more lives and come on, you know you want to be a part of that change.