From the day you give birth, your entire life is considered postpartum. The first zero to six or eight months after giving birth, your body’s going through significant changes. Relaxin, the hormone that makes everything loose for the birth process, is still at an elevated level, zero to six months after, so it’s not surprising that the body can subluxate much easier.
The Benefits of Chiropractic Care
Breastfeeding, lifting your child in their carrier, stress from irregular sleep. Given all the changes you’ll experience after giving birth, chiropractic can help in two important ways:
1. It will help align your body to adapt to those physical new experiences and new stressors.
2. Emotionally and chemically, chiropractic will allow the body to function better to adapt to the increased demand hormonally from relaxin and prolactin from breastfeeding.
How often Should I Come in?
It’s very case by case, but typically we have moms or pregnant people come in one to two days a week post partum, but sometimes there are other extenuating circumstances that make it necessary to see them more often. Frequency is also highly dependent on what the pregnant person or mom did leading up to birth in regards to ‘prepping/training for birth.”
How Long Will It Take to Heal?
If you have a C-section, birth trauma, or tearing, it’s going to extend that timeline of when you’ll be cleared to do certain things (e.g. working out) or movements. How soon you can get back into a normal routine depends on the birth experience.
Giving birth also means you’ve had an internal wound with the placenta attached to you. Although you can’t see it outside, your pelvic floor is very different. Those muscles are dissimilar, and the wound needs time to heal. After a surgery, the normal timeline for a wound to heal is 6-8 weeks.
Remember to Take Care of Yourself
You worked hard to give birth, so you deserve to take it easy. Give yourself permission to chill and not overdo it. Take that time to fully experience the postpartum period and get used to what this new chapter looks like!
Find out how chiropractic can help you recover, contact us today!