Carrying a baby for nine months brings plenty of physical changes to your body, not to mention the emotional ones. After delivering a healthy newborn, the effects of pregnancy don’t disappear overnight. Some of them can take weeks or even months. One of these long-term changes is your post partum belly.

If you don’t know, post partum belly is your body adapting to accommodate you and your baby. Living with it for nine months means it won’t disappear within a few days. Typically, new moms regain their pre-pregnancy body within six to eight weeks. Fortunately, there are ways you can do to help get rid of it faster. Continue reading this article to learn more information regarding these seven tips on how you can eliminate your post partum belly.

7 Tips New Moms Can Follow to Get Rid of Their Post Partum Belly

1. Breastfeed

In addition to the numerous benefits that breastfeeding has on you and your baby, it is also one of the effective ways to get rid of your post partum belly. On average, you burn around five hundred to seven hundred calories per day to ensure that you have a steady supply of milk.

However, breastfeeding may not contribute much to losing weight as other factors, such as diet, pre-pregnancy weight, and lifestyle can have more significant effects on the body.

2. Eat Healthily

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, your diet is a significant factor in ensuring your recti muscles return to their pre-pregnancy state. There are plenty of post-pregnancy diets available online. However, you need to remember that you are building up calories to keep you energetic and provide the necessary nourishment for your baby. Consult a nutritionist for more information regarding which food items you can eat, and which ones you should avoid. Additionally, they can provide you with a plan to ensure you are gaining adequate calories daily.

A general rule of thumb regarding post-pregnancy diets is to avoid food items high in preservatives, sugar, and alcohol. Some examples would include the following:

Soft drinks
Junk food
Fish with high mercury content
caffeinated drinks

3. Stay Hydrated

Aside from ensuring you eat a healthy diet, you need to avoid overeating. While you must gain calories for you and your baby, it doesn’t mean you need to consume everything. Consulting a nutritionist will provide you with information regarding your daily calorie intake. Going beyond that could cause you to gain weight. However, it is possible that you still feel hungry, despite following your daily plan. One way to keep yourself full is by drinking plenty of water. Additionally, staying hydrated helps with digestion and weight loss, which can aid in eliminating your post partum belly.

4. Exercise

While a healthy diet can help you feel full for a longer time, staying physically active can increase the rate you lose your post partum belly. You can consult with your doctor regarding diastasis recti exercises. Seeking their advice is crucial as not every new mom can start working out after delivering a baby.

Once you get their approval, consider attending a fitness class for new moms to ensure you are doing the right exercises. Furthermore, you have a professional looking out for you in case something is wrong, which could lead to injuries.

5. Get a Massage

Another way to eliminate your post partum belly is by getting a massage. Doing so allows blood to flow into your recti muscles, speeding up your recovery. Additionally, this activity helps your saggy skin return to normal as the oils nourish your skin and improve its overall elasticity.

However, you may need to seek your doctor’s approval if you had a caesarean delivery since your incisions may have yet to recover.

6. Ask for Help

Remember that caring for your baby, especially if it has been a few days or weeks after delivery, is not something you should do alone. You should feel free to seek help from your friends, family, and relatives. For example, your spouse may start taking the responsibility of cooking healthy meals and doing the laundry while your older kids clean the house. While you may get the temptation to help, especially if you’re not the kind of person who is comfortable with being idle, you need to know your limits. Excessive stress could cause you to retain your post partum belly longer than you need. Additionally, you may experience urinary incontinence, prompting you to seek treatment. Consider consulting your doctor to know what you can and cannot do.

7. Remember That It Takes Time

Lastly, your divarication of recti heals over time. Despite following the previous tips in this article, your body will still take weeks. However, you might be wondering what this article is all about if your post partum belly would still take a matter of weeks. For example, eating a healthy diet means you are not gaining fat faster than you are losing them. Remember that your body will revert to its natural pre-pregnancy state, assuming no significant changes happened, which in this case, is gaining weight.

Therefore, the point of this last tip is to avoid expecting your post partum belly to disappear within an unrealistic amount of time.

Conclusion

Dealing with a post partum belly is perhaps one of the most common struggles of new moms. While the body has its ways of eliminating it, you can assist it by following these seven tips.

First, breastfeeding, while not as impactful as the others, can help you lose weight since it burns around five hundred to seven hundred calories daily.
Second, a healthy and filling diet means you do not need to eat as much. You can spend hours doing anything besides consuming food, eliminating your possible worries about gaining weight.
Third, drinking plenty of water causes you to feel full, digest meals better, and lose weight.
Fourth, taking diastasis recti exercises can help you burn whatever weight you got while pregnant.
Fifth, getting a massage could speed up your recovery and deal with any saggy skin you may have.
Sixth, asking for help could prevent you from experiencing excessive stress.
Lastly, remember that your post partum belly heals over time.

Aside from dealing with post partum belly, Orchard Clinic has other services for women, such as menopausal treatment. Visit their website for more information.