New mums can work out at home with the help of a virtual trainer
Woman exercises while watching workout video on a laptop and her baby playing around
Three days a week for 30 minutes at a time, the living room of Ailbhe Garrihy’s Castleknock home becomes hers alone. The 31-year-old, who gave birth to first child Sean last August, shakes out her work-out mat, turns on her laptop video and gets fit, courtesy of her Sport Ireland exercise videos.
As part of Healthy Ireland’s Keep Well campaign, Sport Ireland has produced a series of exercise videos aimed at keeping three cohorts of the population in their best possible shape over these lockdown months: new mums, older people and children with sensory needs.
With each exercise suite consisting of six video episodes, Ailbhe explains: “The idea is to do one video three times a week over six weeks. I’ve just finished the six weeks and I’ve found it fantastic. I always try for Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, but it changes every week. Seán would either be napping or with my husband if Ruaidhri was finished work.”
At her six-week check-up following Seán’s birth, the doctor gave Ailbhe the all-clear to start exercising again. “But you can’t go back to what you were doing,” says the PR guru, who works for a family business.
“Lots of muscles need strengthening before you can go back exercising – pelvic, abdominal. For me, it was really important to get my abdominal muscles back strong. With pregnancy, they stretch and are loose. I’m nowhere near where I was, but they are getting stronger.”
Sports therapist Fiona Oppermann leads Sport Ireland’s post-natal keep well programme for new mums. Ailbhe says she’s very reassured to know that, with Oppermann’s guidance, she’s doing the correct things to get her strength and fitness back.
Oppermann says the pandemic plus lockdowns have cut off new mums’ access to the usual supports – visits from public health nurse, breastfeeding groups, the usual new mum meet-ups that happen after having a baby.
“We wanted to focus our exercise content on those stuck home with new babies, who don’t have any social outlet – who can’t get to their postnatal physiotherapy or Pilates.”
Many new mums are in limbo and feel a bit lost, Oppermann finds – they don’t know when it’s safe to resume exercise or what exercise is safe to start with. Even in non-Covid times – while pregnant women have their hand held, with the likes of pre-natal physio – once the baby’s born, very little’s said to mum about getting post-natal rehab and physio. “They walk out of hospital and are left to their own devices – yet it’s really important they get their body back 100% in terms of health of pelvis, lower back and hips.”
The stress of pregnancy and birth can cause a lot of physical damage, points out Oppermann. “Lots of women have complications – extra tissue damage, tearing. Maybe they’ve had a C-section where there’s been cutting through layers of muscle.” As with any injury, “an awful lot of healing has to happen” and, says Oppermann, movement and exercise are a really important component in that healing and restoring of function.
“Mums of newborns are feeling so sore, wrecked, nothing’s working properly and they’re trying to run around on very little sleep and look after a tiny baby. If someone had open abdominal surgery, you wouldn’t hand them a little baby to mind in the weeks after. Yet there’s this weird contradiction with new mums – and very little information for them about getting their strength and fitness back.”
She points to mixed messages directed at new mums around returning to exercise – well-meaning family members/friends tell them to take it easy, not to lift or bend. “Mums of newborns are picking up and carrying their baby every day, bending down to pick up nappies, taking baby up and down from their cot, feeding them. There’s a huge amount of moving, bending and loading that involves a woman’s spine, hips and lower abdomen.
“The baby’s going to get heavier each week so the woman’s body needs to strengthen for that,” says Oppermann, who adds that Sport Ireland’s exercise programme for new mums starts with basic post-natal rehabilitation exercises. It includes activation of pelvic floor muscles, basic strengthening exercises around hips and lower back, core exercises, with a big focus on progressive loading.
When Fiona asks Katelynn how the exercise videos are going, her daughter replies “yeah, fine”. But, says her mum, “the fact she’s doing it and sticking with it says it all”.
Whenever Katelynn doesn’t get enough physical or sensory input, she stims a lot – stimming is a repetitive series of actions done by a person with autism when they’re excited, anxious or stimulated, for example, flapping hands, cracking their knuckles, humming.
“I’m seeing less stimming lately. So the exercise videos are obviously giving her that physical input and regulation she needs,” says Fiona.
Meanwhile in Castleknock, Ailbhe – sister to broadcaster Doireann Garrihy and actress Aoibhín – is feeling good. “Being in lockdown, that pressure to bounce back [after childbirth] wasn’t there so much because you have nowhere to be. All there is to do is get out for a walk and do your exercise.” Living close by the Phoenix Park, she tries to get out for a walk twice a day with baby Seán, who’s “loving his grub and sleeping through the night ‘til about 7am”.
What she loves about the Sport Ireland exercise videos is the ‘me-time’ it gives her. “It’s 30 minutes three times a week to be with myself and my thoughts, while also doing myself good physically. It’s not just a physical benefit but a mental one.”
- See the Sports Ireland video exercise courses on their website - https://www.sportireland.ie/keepwell
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