Bump to Birth | Pilates with Priya

The why and why knot of slings.

5 August, 2015 Priya Tew

We first discovered slings when Kezia was about 3 months old. I had one given to me whilst I was pregnant but it was a ring sling, which I just couldn’t work out. Then I ended up with a high maintenance baby who needed holding a lot, feeding a lot and needed to be upright. Suddenly slings became a necessity. Since then slings have become items that I love, they mean I can hold my baby close enough to kiss and yet have both of my arms free. I’ve always found that slings soothe my babies, they love being in the sling as they can see more, be held close and can poke me 😉 My personal favourite sling for front carries is a woven wrap as it is supportive and versatile. I love the Mei Tai for back carries and for keeping tied on when out and about so I can slip the toddler in and out as needed. I found out recently that baby wearing can burn an extra 16% of calories too, so an added bonus if you are looking at losing the post-baby weight.

Here are my top tips on slings:

Check to see if you have a sling library and advisor in your area. In Southampton we have a fabulous Sling Sling Meet. This meets twice a month, you can go along to get advice, try out a sling, make sure you are wearing it properly and borrow a sling for a month. A truly fabulous resource.

Newborn babies’ have a C-shaped spine, a good sling should allow them to remain in this rounded position and not slouch down when asleep. The fabric shold come up high enough to provide head support.

As with most things in life there are good and bad slings. Meaning there are slings that hold your baby in a good position and some that are not good for baby’s posture and specifically hip development. Forcing the hips into a stretched out position too early can lead to hip dysplasia. You want your baby to have their legs in a “froggy” position or M shape when in a sling, much like the fetal position. Their bottom should sit lower than their knees to allow for the balls o f the hips to sit in the sockets. This takes the pressure off the hip joint. Check that your sling allows this and doesn’t cause the baby’s legs to dangle down, unsupported.

Look out for second hand slings on preloved sites and ebay, you can save a fortune. Also check out you tube for great videos on how to wear your sling, I’ve learnt so many different carries this way.

Be very mindful of your posture when using your sling. It is very easy to let your shoulders round forward and and your neck jut down. This will lead to neck and shoulder ache and will not help with healing a diastasis. You need to focus on your core when using a sling, as when you think about it you are lifting something! So you need to think about your posture and core. Focus on standing tall, lengthening through the crown of your head, bring your shoulder blades down in your back and lifting through your mid back without pushing your ribcage out. Draw in your lower abdominal and lift your pelvic floor, holding a medium contraction in these muscles. If you get tired then rest. I found a few positions where I could prop myself up on the sofa or bed and have a nap with baby sleeping in the sling!

Embrace the mummy tummy.

5 July, 2015 Priya Tew

A sensitive topic. Mummy tummies and post baby bellies are something that I deal with on a regular basis. I know how much pressure mums can feel to lose the baby weight and get back into their skinny jeans. I felt it myself after my second baby especially. Social media and the media shows us how some celebs look like they’ve never had a baby just a few weeks after giving birth. There are posts of mums doing all kinds of crazy in order to lose weight and tone up. Whereas actually if your body has just had a baby doesn’t it need to rest and isn’t it perfectly natural and normal for your body to not ping back to normal after 9 months of stretching and carrying an extra person around inside it?

I’ve had 2 babies. I’m a Pilates teacher and a dietitian. So I eat well, I exercise and I didn’t put on too much weight with either pregnancy. Yet I still took 6 months to lose the baby weight. Here I am 4 weeks after baby with a definite bump still there.

Pilates with Priya: Post Natal Tummy Week 4

Reasons to embrace the mummy tummy:

1. If you are breastfeeding then your body needs to have some reserves to make milk. Breastfeeding can help you lose weight but your body may not let you lose it all too soon. It’s a pretty sensible system really isn’t it. There is some built in protection for baby in those early months.

2. It’s taken 9 months or so to create a baby, you’ve done a stunning job of carrying baby around and feeding baby. All of that takes a toll on your body, it uses your nutritional stores. Now your body needs to recover. 9 months on, 9 months off is the commonly said phrase and I agree with it. It may feel like a long time but it really isn’t in the grand scheme of life.

3. Obviously you don’t want your weight to stay higher than normal for ever, but initially it’s a rite of passage and a sign of mummyhood. Try to savour those early days. Spending time with your baby and looking after yourself is the most important thing.

4. Getting back into high intensity exercise too soon can be damaging. Your pelvic floor needs to be strong enough and any abdominal separation fixed before you start running, jumping or high impact workouts. Stick to swimming, postnatal classes or specialist pilates.

Look out for my next post for top tips on how to lose that mummy tummy.

Pelvic Floor: It’s not all about the lift.

14 June, 2015 Priya Tew

I’m slowly turning into a pelvic floor geek. Someone save me! Seriously I have learnt so much more about the pelvic floor in the past year and know I have more to learn. It’s pretty sad that so much of the information that is given out is so out of date.

Gone are the days when strengthening your pelvic floor was just about trying to mimic the actio of stopping the flow of urine. This is such a simplistic view on a working a complex muscle.

In this brief video below I talk about the pelvic floor being like a trampoline, how we need to strengthen it all the way round thinking about all the attachments and the danger of over tightening. No-one wants an over-tight muscle. Think about having a tight calf muscle. No fun. It can lead to that muscle actually being weak, which is the whole issue you were trying to avoid. Whoops. So focusing on all the muscle attachments and strengthening PLUS relaxing it is the way to go.

(This video was recorded live on Periscope some I respond to the live viewers in parts).

How to stay on top of cooking healthy meals

3 May, 2015 Priya Tew

The craziness of 2 small children and teaching classes at times others would eat means I HAVE to be ultra-organised about our meals. It’s that or live off beans on toast, which wouldn’t be very considerate for my Pilates classes 😉

So if you also have a busy lifestyle, if you are cooking around young ones or if you are wanting to save a few pennies… read on for my top tips.

My top tips:

Meal Planning really does work. We have a whiteboard in our kitchen and I plan out our evening meals and some of our lunches too.
Use your meal plan to shop and prepare in advance. When you have a quieter day chop up some veggies in advance for example, or boil a pile of eggs for lunches, make hummus or cook a meal to get ahead.
Cook in bulk when you can. If you are doing a casserole, chilli, bolognaise, soup or freezable meal cook double and freeze it. This saves me on a regular basis on days things go wrong and I realise I’ve no time to cook!
You don’t have to wait until dinner time to cook. I often end up cooking our evening meal in the morning, as that’s when I have a gap in my day. It can be quite satisfying knowing dinner is already cooked!
Embrace the slow cooker love. The beauty of this is you can prep it the night before and keep it in the fridge, then switch it on in the morning and by evening you have a cooked meal, often with leftovers to freeze. See my slow cooker recipes here or my pinterest board with over 50 ideas.
Have a day a week you use up the leftovers. Put them on a pizza, add to pasta, put veggies in a frittata or stir fry… it may not be a standard recipe but it can save you time, money and is inventive! See Love Food, Hate Waste for top tips and recipes.
Have some emergency meals in your stores. Baked potatoes can be cooked in the microwave in 10 minutes, add tuna and sweetcorn with some chopped veggies and you have a meal. We always have a jar of pesto ready for that emergency pasta dish and frozen veggies.

What are your top tips or recipes?

For more recipes pop to Dietitian UK.

Pilates can work wonders for Pelvic Girdle Pain (SPD) – a testimonial.

28 April, 2015 Priya Tew

Here is an amazing testimonial from a lady who is now not just a client but also I now consider a friend. When Louise first came to me I really wasn’t too sure if I was going to be able to be of much help. I had to think creatively to come up with solutions for exercises she was able to do and over time I watched her get stronger, more confident and have less pain. This shows me how if you trust the science, assess the body in front of you and adapt accordingly it really can work wonders!

When I came to Priya, I was in already in a bad way and suffering with a lot of pelvis & hip pain and unable to do very much activities at all. I was also on crutches.

However, Priya was amazing, she assessed me and tailored a plan that was completely individual to me and my limitations with SPD. To my amazement, even after just a few sessions with Pirya, I noticed an improvement in my pain levels and had improved mobility. I continued to attend pilates sessions with Priya and used the moves learnt in my sessions everyday at home. I was unable to do very long but even just 10-15 minutes a day really helped. I was able to attend classes up until 7 months, & continued at home until almost the end of my pregnancy. This was a vast improvement on my first pregnancy, & although I was still in pain, this time I could keep moving and was able to reduce the amount of pain relief I needed to take.

Post pregnancy i found that the pilates i had done pre birth had made a massive difference to how quickly I recovered from the spd post pregnancy. In my first pregnancy it took me almost two years to fully recover from the spd. However, this time I asked Priya to recommend some pilates exercises I could do from day 1 post pregnancy. She gave me three simple exercises which I did everyday for the first 12 weeks & they made an enormous difference to my recovery post pregnancy.

At 12 weeks I went back to pilates and was amazed by how much I had already improved from when i was pregnant. I have continued to attend pilates twice a week with Pirya, and I contine to me amazed by what my body can do considering how much pain I was in a mere 7 months ago when my daughter was born.

For me attending pilates with Priya whilst I was pregnant and had spd was by far the best thing I did. It helped enormously with my pain and mobility and Priya was and continues to be amazing in understanding my body and individual needs. My SPD was extremely severe and I was previously told it was too bad to be able to attend a normal antenatal class, therefore, I was really worried that doing any pilates would really hurt and make the SPD worse. However, Priya introduced me to very simple and gentle moves, which at first I thought were so basic they couldn’t help. However, I couldn’t believe how much they did help and i would really recommend to anyone suffering with the SPD to try doing pilates.

I came to Priya for Pilates back in January 2014, 3 months pregnant and already really suffering with pain from SPD. In my first pregnancy the SPD became so bad that I ended up having to use a wheelchair as I couldn’t walk without pain. Therefore, I was determined to try and prevent the same thing happening in my second pregnancy and a friend had told me how good Priya was, specifically in using pilates to help alleviate pain associated with spd.

Squat & Scapular Squeeze: a perfect combo for working the upper and lower body.

7 March, 2015 Priya Tew

Squats Rock. Period. One of the best exercises if you are pregnant or postnatal. They strengthen your legs, bum, thighs, work your pelvic floor and your core. Just to add in a bit extra I’ve used a resisitance band to work the upper back too. A fabulous all-rounder of an exercise.

If you aren’t pregnant/postnatal this is ALSO a fabulous exercise. Try it out and let me know how you find it.

Beyond Your Bump DVD Testimonial

24 January, 2015 Priya Tew

A long time ago, before I had my my lovely boy, I had a lovely lady come to my antenatal classes. She sadly had a complication and lost her baby in the second trimester. Then over a year later I had an email and this lady had bought our postnatal DVD. Excitedly I contacted her and she had gone on to have another healthy, happy baby. Here is her amazing review:

So I love your Dvd. The instructions are clear and the visual really highlights the areas you are talking about. It still gets across your lovely personality and after a hectic day or bed time it’s my wonderful calm time and your voice and the music really help. I like that I can choose different areas on different days, and also that you constantly remind us to pull in that core!

The only section I struggle on is the prone and as a breast feeding mum I found them a bit sore on my chest so some alternatives on those particularly tender days would have been useful.

I find the window really great for releasing my neck, shoulders and upper back especially after carry and feeding our lovely baby.

She is nearly seven months now and I’m finding your Dvd still has the right amount of challenge and really gets the right areas. I was wondering in a few months when I’m ready to move on do you have any more DVDs to go forward with?

Wow. Pretty glowing review. In answer to the question at the end: Yes I have a normal Pilates DVD that you could move onto when you are feeling like you are no longer postnatal – it includes some curling up so is not suitable if you have a diastasis recti.

You can buy our DVD’s via Amazon or via our website.

Life with 2 kids

24 January, 2015 Priya Tew

The past 15 months has actually flown by in a mix of sleep deprivation, adrenaline and frenzied activity including Pilates. Having my second baby has meant that I’ve found a lot of things easier in terms of understanding my baby’s needs, realising why they are crying and knowing top tips like how to occupy a mobile baby when you need them to lie still for a nappy change (give them your phone) and to never throw them in the air after a feed, unless you like a milk explosion in your hair.

What have I learnt?

That having 2 kids is twice the work, twice the sleep deprivation but four times the pleasure. I’ve so enjoyed watching my 2 get to know each other. From the moment her little brother was born Miss K has loved spending time with him and now he reciprocates that. Watching how their faces light up when they see each other is just beautiful.

Boys are cheekier, move faster, get into more mischief but give more kisses and cuddles! Today I’ve had a toothbrush in the toilet, porridge in my hair and found him standing up at the kitchen sink trying to wash up.

Changing a boys nappy is different to a girls 😉

Second baby means you are even more sleep deprived as you wake up with both children and cannot nap in the day. My best moment recently was getting a lift home with hubby and not realising for over 24 hours that I’d left my car the other side of the city. Thankfully not in a car park or that would have been a big fine!

I can juggle a lot of things at once, most of the time. Some days it gets too much and I just need to ask for help. You know what? That is ok. Find friends who you can be yourself with, hang out with warts and all and who will be there at those times.

Children break you – in the nicest posssible way. My patience has been tested to it’s limits, my teaching skills refined and my body pushed, pulled and climbed upon. I lift, carry, throw and move heavy people daily. Pilates fixes me and my children break me. It’s an ongoing battle.

My studio is my haven. In there, it is usually peaceful 😉

Top Tips:

Relax into the carnage. Your house will be a mess but your children are making memories and you don’t want to miss those moments. The second you tidy up there will be a child filling the space.

Keep a camera ready at all times. Thank goodness for my phone. Capture those funny times.

Embrace the moment. They really do grow up so very fast. You don’t want to miss it. Even when you’ve been rocking the baby for an hour, feeding most of the night or have to cancel something as the toddler is ill – I try to see the positive. I get to spend more time with them whilst they are little.

Prepare ahead as much as you can. If I have a hectic morning I will even put the cereal in bowls the night before. If you want to eat healthily then cooking in bulk and meal planning really helps. However as much as you prepare ahead, there will be times a nappy explosion comes at the wrong time and you are just late!

Nutrition in Pregnancy: What to Eat.

13 January, 2015 Priya Tew

Diet in pregnancy is key. What you eat in that time will influence the growth and development of baby not only whilst it is in your womb but for the rest of it’s life. It is therefore a pretty big responsibilty to eat well isn’t it. Research shows us the risk of chronic diseases can be influenced this early on by the mum’s diet – we are talking type 2 diabetes, obesity and some inflammatory diseases, so it’s pretty important stuff. Your baby’s tastes can also be influenced by what you are eating, which makes sense seeing as they are getting their nutrition from you. Here are some top tips on how to ensure your diet is well balanced and keeps both mum and baby in tip top condition.

Eating for 2?
A myth, sadly! You actually don’t need to eat as much extra as you may think when pregnanct. Many people I meet use pregnancy as a chance to over indulge. It’s almost a green light for chocolate and biscuits. However the body actually adapts in pregnancy by either absorbing more from food or by decreasing the amount of nutrients lost. It’s a very clever system, which means you don’t need to be eating much more at all when pregnant. For example non-haem iron (from plant sources) is absorbed better and less iron is lost as menstruation does not occur in pregnancy. For some nutrients such as calcium the increased amount needed for the baby is met extra calcium being released from the mum’s bones.

You will need the equivalent of an extra slice of toast and a banana in the last trimester of pregnancy, but that is about all. The best thing is to eat according to appetite, sticking to healthy, nutritious foods. It is also good to not deprive yourself, so the odd treat is still allowed! I used to have a soft spot for Crunchie’s when pregnant 😉

Key nutrients to focus on are:
Folate – extra 400µg per day for first 12 weeks of pregnancy and during conception.
Vitamin D – 10µg per day throughout pregnancy
Vitamin C – extra 10µg/day in last trimester
Vitamin A – caution, 100µg/day only, some vitamin supplements will be unsuitable in pregnancy as they contain too much Vitamin A.

Iron – eat plenty of iron rich foods. Good sources are red meat, green leafy veggies, dried fruit, beans and pulses, nuts, seeds and fortified breakfast cereals. Try a lentil bolognaise with plenty of green veggies or make some hummus with chickpeas and tahini.

Calcium – include good sources of this 3-4 times a day (yoghurt, milk, ovaltine, ready brek, dried fruit, rice pudding, custard, sesame seeds, gree leafy vegetables, fish with small bones). Why not make a smoothie with fresh fruit and yoghurt.
Omega 3’s – eat 1 x 140g portion of oily fish per week – salmon, fresh tuna, haddock, trout, mackerel, pilchards, kippers and sardines. You could make a fish pate or try sardines in tomato sauce on a baked potato.

Plan to Eat:
At least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day
Starchy carbohydrates at each meal – focus on wholegrains
Iron rich foods each day
3-4 calcium foods a day (yoghurt, milk, cheese, rice pudding, custard, sesame seeds, green leafy veggies, ready brek)
Oily fish once a week
Lean protein daily

C sections, the how, what and why of exercise

5 January, 2015 Priya Tew

C-sections can be planned or emergency. I knew very little about them when I gave birth the first time and actually avoided the antenatal class on the topic! However it is really best to have some knowledge in case you have one. Some women elect to have a section, and others go through the stages of labour and then deliver their baby via section. Around 25% of all births in the UK were delivered by section (2008).

What is a c-section?

An incision made horizontally, just above your pubic hair line. Contrary to belief, your abdominal muscles AREN’T actually cut with this incision, it’s the outer coating of the muscle, and the cling film type structure in between the 6-pack muscles that is. The incision is made on the outside of your body horizontally, and then your surgeon gently peels your Linea Alba apart (vertically) to gain access. The Linea Alba runs vertically down your stomach, and separates your six pack muscles in half, above and below your belly button. The outside incision is then sutured back together, but the inside cling film/Linea Alba is not.

I know I’m having a c-section, so I don’t need to do pelvic floor exercises, right?

If you elect to have a section, there’s a misconception that your pelvic floor will be fine. You might think that because your body won’t be going through the stages of labour, your pelvic floor won’t be affected. However, pregnancy itself puts tremendous pressure on your pelvic floor, as the weight of your developing baby gets bigger and bigger, and therefore weakens these muscles. So, it’s still very important that you strengthen your pelvic floor during and after pregnancy, even if you elected to have a section.

When can you return to exercise following a c-section?

You will need to have had your Doctor’s Check up before your return to exercise after a c-section, which, depending on your Doctor’s Practice/Surgery could be 8 weeks, 10 weeks or even 12 weeks, so give them a call to see what their guidelines are. It’s major surgery and your body will need time to heal, so my top tip is to listen to your body and don’t rush back into exercise too early.

What is recovery like after a c-section?

After a c-section, your recover time is longer than a natural birth, you may have a loss of sensation, a numbness in your abdominals especially around the scar area, and the scar tissue itself may reduce your ability to do certain movements completely pain-free. Your pelvic floor may take a little while to activate consciously too, but keep sending the signal from your brain to these muscles, and eventually, it will switch back on, I promise.

What exercise is safe after a c-section?

Postnatal-specific Pilates-based or core exercise is probably THE best form of exercise for any new mum to be doing, regardless of the type delivery. Pelvic floor work and then TVA core work is essential to get everything firing again and to start toning that tummy too. It can take time for sensation and nerve impulses to start working again, but it will happen. Patience and perserverance are needed. Babies teach you a lot about both of those I find 😉

Category: Bump to Birth