5 Important Questions To Ask Your Doctor At Your 6 Week Post Natal Checkup

Before you even think about returning to exercise after having a baby, it’s important to get clearance from your doctor. This usually happens with you going along to your GP for your 6-Week Post Natal checkup where, if you are lucky, they will look at you, ask you a few generic questions and then say – “sure, go for it, you are now cleared to get back into exercise…”

This makes me so angry!!

The problem is that as soon as a medical professional tells us we are ok to do something, we take that as gospel right?

WRONG!

The 6 week checkup is no more than a routine “standard” appointment. It’s not specialised enough to offer women the advice they need about returning to exercise which is why you should go armed with questions to ask so that you can either give that information to your trainer or have some more knowledge about what exactly is going on with your body.

You should be asking for so much more to ensure you don’t have any major issues that are going to impact your return to fitness journey and that your transition back to exercise is as smooth as it can be.

So many mums I work with that come to the Pram Fitness Get Started Session are surprised at how thorough it is. Our main focus is your safety, we want to gain all the information we can to make sure we know exactly what is going on with your body to offer you the best advice we can about your exercise plan.

So why don’t doctors do this? So frustrating!

In my opinion I think it’s important to also have a check up with a Women’s Physio after having a baby. The best time to do this would be about a month after birth but this is also a crazy time and fitting in a physio appointment might just be impossible. If this is the case for you, that’s ok – just go when you can.

With this in mind, here are the top 5 questions that relate to returning to fitness that I think you should be asking your doctor at your 6 Week Check up…

#1: Can you please check me for abdominal separation

Just bear with me for a second while I explain this one… Your abdominals are joined on the left and right side by connective tissue that runs along the midline. This tissue is called your linea alba (shown in blue in the illustration). During pregnancy the linea alba softens and stretches, allowing the abdominal wall (shown in pink) to expand as your baby grows inside you.

The linea alba can take a huge amount of stress and stretching during pregnancy, especially towards the tail end when your body has been stretched to the max. Pretty incredible if you ask me!

When the linea alba is stretched so much that the two sides of the rectus abdominus separate, that my friends is what is known as Abdominal Separation (Diastasis Recti).

After you have your baby the two sides of your abdominal wall don’t always join back together straight away and it’s important to know if you do have a separation because it may mean modifying some exercises until the gap closes enough to not have an impact on your core.

Keep in mind, it’s very common to have a separation and there are plenty of exercise we can do to help rehab the muscles so don’t freak out if you do get told you do have one.

When you come to your Get Started Session we will do a full check for Abdominal Separation before we do anything else just to make sure we know exactly what we are working with to keep you safe.

#2: Can you please make sure I know how to activate my pelvic floor muscles correctly

After giving birth it’s extremely common for you to experience urinary incontinence. You might sneeze, laugh, cough or jump and a bit of wee will leak out which in turn could lead to a freak out.

First of all I want to let you know you don’t need to freak out and urinary incontinence is not something you have to live with.

The pelvic floor muscle is just like any other muscle in the body, if you work it, it will get stronger. So if you do experience a bit of incontinence it can be fixed. It just means you need to be even more dedicated to doing your pelvic floor exercises.

Every medical practitioner, physiotherapist or post-natal trainer will have their own way of explaining how to activate your pelvic floor muscle and it’s an important life skill to have so keep talking to people until it clicks for you.

If you’re not sure if you are activating your pelvic floor muscle correctly I highly recommend you visit a specialist women’s physiotherapist that has ultrasound facilities. That way you can know for sure if you are or aren’t doing it right and you can also check out a great blog article I wrote with a whole heap of helpful information about Pelvic Floor health.

#3: Why are my bones and joints sore? What can I do about this?

After giving birth, it’s very common for your body to still be producing the hormone relaxin. While relaxin was awesome in helping you deliver your baby, it’s not so great post birth.

At your six week check up, if you are experiencing joint aches ask your doctor about post natal exercises that will help to relieve any tension.

The most common aches that I see at Pram Fitness are wrist, knee and back pain, so make sure you do get on top of this if it does become an issue for you.

Keep in mind that nutritional support is also very important at this time. Since the body is still recovering from birth your joints might need extra nutrients that can help strengthen and sustain them. Ask your doctor if they can recommend any joint supplements to help you with your recovery.

#4: Am I crying a bit too much?

Becoming a new mum is an intense and crazy time. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions and post-natal depression affects so many more people than you actually think.

Changes to hormone levels, complete sleep deprivation and having a new baby that needs you for everything are all big life changes.

Often mums tell me that they will just start crying for no reason, they will be having a chat to me about something they did on the weekend and then all of a sudden there are tears everywhere. It’s so common because of everything that is going on with your life.

Being a new mum is going to be one of the hardest jobs you will ever do, one minute you will feel that you can conquer the world and the next you will be questioning every parenting decision you have ever made. Please know, this is very normal however if you do start to feel intense feelings of sadness, anxiety or complete despair that hold you back from doing your day to day tasks make sure you talk to your doctor about how you are feeling immediately.

It’s important to know that whatever you are feeling, you don’t have to go it alone. There are so many people out there that can help so make sure you reach out if you need to.

Beyond Blue also have some great resources available, if you would like more information you can click HERE.

#5: Were there any issues with my birth that I should know about?

It’s more than likely that you covered this off while you were in hospital with your doctor or midwife… The thing is, after the dust settles and you get home from hospital you might have a few questions that you would still like answered.

When returning to exercise we always talk to our clients about their birth as this helps us to know of any issues that we might need to take into account when getting back into fitness.

For example, if you had a c-section or a traumatic birth story with a lot of tearing, you might need a bit of extra rehab time before moving forward with certain exercises. The more information we have, the better we can prescribe the right level of fitness for you.

A great way to think about your return to fitness plan is like building a house from the ground up. First you need to make sure the foundations are strong to support the rest of the house. If you don’t get the foundations right you will always have problems with the structure – make sense?

Asking the right questions now and doing the right work to ease into fitness can only help you in the long run. Take your time, ask as many questions as you need to and remember it’s your body so if something doesn’t feel right bring it up and find out why.

Once you are ready to exercise if you would like to know more about the Pram Fitness return to fitness Get Started Pass check it out HERE.