after birth

*From time to time, the host or guests may discuss topics related to health, fitness, nutrition, or medicine. This information is not advice and should not be treated as medical advice. All content is for informational purposes only*

Postpartum recovery involves more than just managing physical symptoms. Taking care of yourself during this time is crucial.

1. Accept help when it's offered:
   • Don't be ashamed to ask for help when needed.
   • Be open to accepting help from unexpected sources.
   • Challenge the mindset of doing it all alone and set a new norm of accepting help.
2. Implement the 5/5/5/5 rule:
   • Give your body the attention it needs after childbirth.
   • The rule includes spending 5 days in bed, 5 days on the bed, and 5 days around the bed.
   • Focus on rest, skin-to-skin bonding, breastfeeding, and healing.
3. Talk to other moms:
   • Seek advice and support from experienced mothers.
   • Join mom groups or online communities to connect with a broader network.
   • Find a safe space where you can ask questions without fear of judgment or shaming.
4. Prepare your spouse:
   • Communicate your thoughts, feelings, and needs to your partner.
   • Consider adjusting roles based on what feels natural for both of you.
5. Rest:
   • Prioritize sleep and rest deep into the postpartum period.
   • Find moments to rest and relax throughout the day.
   • Discover what activities make you feel rejuvenated and decrease stress.
6. Make a portable postpartum recovery kit:
   • Organize postpartum essentials in a portable caddy.
   • Keep everything easily accessible to make your recovery more convenient.
7. Get outside:
   • Spend time outside with your baby, even if it's in your backyard or front porch.
   • Fresh air and sunlight can boost your mood and regulate sleep patterns.
   • Avoid seclusion and the feeling of being trapped indoors for too long.
8. Don't get lost in opinions. Get informed, and make your own:
   • Recognize that there are diverse opinions on parenting topics.
   • Trust your instincts and make decisions that feel right for your family.
   • Find a middle ground that aligns with your values and circumstances.
9. Be gentle with yourself:
   • Understand that hormonal changes and adjusting to postpartum life can be challenging.
   • Practice self-compassion and patience.
   • Take care of your physical and mental well-being as you heal and adapt.
10. "Take Ten":
    • Take short breaks for yourself to relax and recharge.
    • Choose activities that can't be done while holding or nursing the baby.
    • Encourage your partner to handle baby care during these breaks.
    • Allow yourself time to focus on your own needs and rejuvenate.

Download the FREE Postpartum Recovery Checklist

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CLICK HERE to learn more about our online birth, breastfeeding, and baby care courses that will help you feel prepared and empowered on your journey to and through motherhood.

And be sure to follow @alifeinlabor on instagram to join our little community of mamas who are navigating this stage of life right along side you. 

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What IS the fourth trimester?

In this podcast episode, we are beyond thrilled to be in conversation with the two magnificent women who created Fourth Trimester Foundations. Carly and Meg are registered nurses who work on the frontlines - they are present with moms in labor and delivery every day. They’re also moms themselves, and have experienced firsthand the many gaps in the healthcare system that doesn’t prepare people for the fourth trimester experience.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• The pediatrician who brought forth the science behind fourth trimester
• The concept of still being a “unit” with your baby after birth
• How taking POSTPARTUM CLASSES is equally as important as taking  CHILDBIRTH CLASSES
• The question Carly and Meg get most after EVERY patient gives birth - no matter if it was vaginal or surgical
• The importance of setting FIRM boundaries to start, knowing that postpartum is YOUR experience and you get to change your mind if you feel like it
• Stories from nurses who have seen it all and are tired of society telling women they have to keep their postpartum struggles under wraps

Notable Quotes from Carly & Meg:
“There's a couple of reasons that people don’t prepare for postpartum. Frankly, you don't have to, nobody's gonna make you do it. You can still show up in labor and you'll get to the other side, and you'll still have your fourth trimester, whether it's good or bad, or somewhere in between, and you'll survive and life will go on - you don't have to do it. I think the other reason that people don't [prepare] is because the society portrays to us that you're done after you give birth - the event is over. You know, it's not like any other experience in the hospital. You go into the hospital sick, you get treated, you get better, you go home, and it's over. You go in for surgery, your surgery’s done, you recover from your surgery, and it's over. Your birth, whether it was surgical or vaginal, it's not a finished experience. Once your birth is over, people forget that there's this whole life left to live. The collateral damage of what happened to your body in the process doesn't have to just fall apart.”

“There's so much focus on creating a registry for baby and having all the right baby products and making sure you have every kind of bottle or every kind of product you could possibly need for all of your motherhood journey. [But] there's a better [use of] time, finances or the support you’re being gifted with to prepare for postpartum before it's there.”

Resources & Links
Learn more about Carly and Meg and Fourth Trimester Foundations on their website where you’ll find the free postpartum planner and post-birth warning signs guide mentioned in the episode. Use code DEVOTEDMAMAS20 for $20 off any workshop or 1:1 call!. Carly and Meg also keep it real on Instagram + TikTok:

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

In the previous episode, we talked about seven things Kendra wishes she knew sooner in motherhood. Today, it’s Nicole’s turn to share the secrets in her motherhood toolkit. (A teaser: childbirth can actually feel SATISFYING!)

In those first few years, when we’re holding our newborns and are extremely fatigued, it can be hard to see the big picture. But what we want you to know is that this experience is helping you in ways you can’t see yet.

We hope that you embrace parenthood as the hero’s journey that it is, from the refusal (THIS isn’t what I thought it would be!) to all the people you meet along the way, including mentors, teachers, and other parents.

Eventually, after crossing into the dark forest, you’ll return home and share what you’ve learned with other mothers who are finding their way. This is what we are doing today, and this is what the community of motherhood is all about.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• How sensations in childbirth can actually feel SATISFYING – and how high adrenaline levels and tension will only create more pain and suffering
• The anxiety, depression, and overwhelm Nicole could have avoided if someone had told her this one thing about breastfeeding
• The impact the right foods and physical body care have on postpartum recovery – and in particular, the impact of prioritizing core and pelvic strength
• The value of removing ourselves from the house, which can help us reset and avoid setting up patterns of dependency
• How parenthood is the greatest personal development journey – and how part of that is sharing what you’ve learned with other parents finding their paths
• How finding a third “helper” can help us feel more equipped and ward off postpartum depression

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Will I ever feel like myself again?

It’s something you might contemplate in those early months (or years) postpartum. Today we’re here to tell you that you will.

It will take less time if you get help (wink, wink) but it WILL take some time. Just like it takes time to grow a baby, it takes time to grow into your new identity as a mother.

In the next two episodes, we’re talking about the 14 things we wish we knew earlier on in motherhood. In this one, Kendra tackles seven, and in the next, Nicole will share seven more. 

Hindsight is 20/20, and between us – Kendra (whose kids are ages 9 and 5) and Nicole (whose kids are 14 and 10) – we have a lot of wisdom to share. Our hope? To help other moms in those difficult, early stages of motherhood.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• How pushing things too fast or too hard postpartum might only drag your recovery out – plus, what Kendra learned after the birth of her second child
• Paying better attention to what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how it’s feeling, and why the paradigm of “no pain, no gain” doesn’t apply
• Giving ourselves more grace in the early throes of parenthood and strengthening the “asking for help” muscle
• Building our safety nets/rescue boats BEFORE the boat starts sinking – i.e., before we need them (and how these “nets” change as kids get older)
• Awareness about our emotional maturity regarding sadness/happiness/anger  – and how it can help when our kids experience those emotions
• The impact our well-beings have on how we show up for our kids

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

We often hear from postpartum moms that their yoga practice just doesn’t feel the same.

Maybe they’re not feeling confident. Maybe the yoga practice they’re doing feels too fast, too long, or too exhausting. Maybe it’s that their own bodies feel foreign to them. Or maybe it’s that yoga just isn’t feeling as enjoyable.

In today’s episode we’re digging into all of that and more, focusing on the 6 most-asked questions about getting back into yoga after having a baby, and how to adjust your practice so that it works for where you are right now.

Here, we also talk about the unexpected benefits of yoga, from instilling confidence to unlocking ENERGY stored up in our bodies – energy you might not have even known you had as a new mom!

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• The 6 most-asked questions about getting back to yoga after having a baby
• How yoga can allow us to unlock NEW ENERGY stored in our bodies and actually help regulate the body’s natural sleep patterns
• What postures to NOT do in postpartum, plus the best (and worst) yoga poses if you’re breastfeeding
• The importance of breath and gentle movement in restarting your practice, and using yoga to manage diastasis recti or the postpartum pooch
• The power of yoga against self-sabotage and negative thoughts and its ability to enhance mental fitness
• Making yoga DOABLE by cultivating a home practice so there are fewer barriers (childcare, studio timetables) to getting on your mat

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Questions for us? You can ask voice questions about our podcast on our website.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Some people feel like they’re done with postpartum when they hit certain dates. Others feel postpartum drags on forever and is never done.

It can be hard to know, since there’s a TON of conflicting information out there!

In this episode, we’ll talk about the four distinct phases of recovery (which we developed after working with hundreds of moms in various stages of postpartum!) – and how to know when you don’t need postpartum-specific workouts anymore.

Contrary to popular belief, healing your body has NOTHING to do with time passed and EVERYTHING to do with how it feels and functions.

We’ve developed a scoring system to help moms quantify where they are in their recovery (accessible via our quiz!) and advice on moving from one stage to the next so that in the next phase of motherhood, moms are as strong as they’ve ever been.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• The four phases of postpartum recovery and how to know which one you’re in via our postpartum core and pelvic floor quiz
• How quickly moms can progress between phases when they honor the phase they’re IN (not where they WANT to be) and let that be their guiding force
• The “mom pooch” issue (which has more to do with pelvic floor than core)
• The difference between pushing your endurance and “pushing through” 
• The importance of reentering fitness regimes with a postpartum-specific program, such as our postpartum repair and restore eight-week program
•  The questions that hold moms back, and how to get stronger (maybe even stronger than before pregnancy!) WITHOUT more hours at the gym

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to take our postpartum core and pelvic floor quiz, and join our Postpartum Repair & Restore LIVE series, where you’ll be guided by us through our proven step-by-step method for restoring your core and pelvic strength, all while KNOWING the work you’re doing is the RIGHT work for your body. 

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Today’s episode features one of our clients, Stephanie Kramer, a self-proclaimed fitness fanatic whose resume includes work for Peloton and Equinox.

At week 25, Stephanie’s doctor told her she needed to stop running. As a running addict, the news was devastating, to say the least.

Instead of becoming totally inactive, Stephanie was able to maintain incredible strength and get back to running faster and longer postpartum. (In fact, she even just ran her first half marathon!)

Her story is a great reminder that you CAN still be strong and powerful during pregnancy and postpartum if you stay focused on your goals. She laid a really strong foundation during pregnancy so that later, her body would know what to do.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• The mistakes Stephanie made regarding getting too many opinions about running and exercise in pregnancy
• How Stephanie stayed strong and maintained her fitness, even after her doctor told her she needed to stop running at 25 weeks pregnant
• The magical thing that happened to Stephanie at 35 weeks pregnant
• Navigating getting back into running post birth (and how it’s a little more complicated than you might think!) 
• One key to postpartum fitness and recovery: being kind to yourself and honest with yourself
• Stephanie’s advice for pregnant women who want to stay super fit and get back into running after kids

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Not all pain is created equal – especially in pregnancy and postpartum.

We’ve worked with thousands of moms over the years, and this is something we know to be true. In today’s episode, we want to help you have more discernment and criteria to evaluate your pain.

There are so many different kinds of pain you might feel during this time: muscle pain, spasms, joint pain, ligament pain, digestive pain, headaches, abdominal pain.

One thing they all have in common? They can naturally lead to a lot of fear – fear that might cause expecting and postpartum moms to avoid exercise altogether, which ultimately might not serve them well.

But we have found that once moms are able to describe their pain with more accuracy, the more confident they feel about proceeding forward.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• How to know if pain is beneficial (i.e., in terms of muscle growth, a little inflammation is actually good) or harmful
• Warning signs associated with pain (headache, nausea, vomiting, intense abdominal pain, bleeding, pops, sharp poker pain)
• Our two-part approach to decide whether to push forward, back off, or stop 
• The nuances of the pain (does it get better or worse when you move?)
• Why, generally, the typical Rest/Ice/Compression/Elevation is okay advice, but really, the recommendation is to keep that joint in motion
• All about our starter session – a big picture view to start understanding what’s happening in your body, with a full assessment plus immediate action steps

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Interested in participating in one of our starter sessions? Email us with the subject “Starter Session,” and we’ll invite you to chat and learn about your pain and your goals.

Are you tired of being told your pregnancy and postpartum aches and pains are normal and will go away on their own? Yes, our bodies are amazing, but sometimes just waiting and trusting without any action can make imbalances and weaknesses worse. We work privately with moms who want to take an active role in creating strength, healing, confidence and independence.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

When you learned you were pregnant, did you worry about losing your fitness?

This was true for one of our clients, Greta, who is an active duty Judge Advocate General (JAG). For her, fitness is not only an important aspect of her job – it's also something that makes her happy.

When she had her daughter about a year ago, she faced a tough recovery and a strenuous job to return to. She’d put on 60 pounds during her pregnancy and afterward struggled with pelvic floor pain and connecting to her core. She began our postpartum recovery program six weeks postpartum.

In this episode, Greta shares her journey back to fitness – the mistakes she made, what she learned, and what she recommends more mothers do in order to feel STRONGER postpartum than before kids.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• The mistakes Greta made in postpartum – and how she overcame them
• The importance of showing up, no matter what intensity you ultimately decide to work out at
• Greta’s advice for new moms regarding consistency
• The tools Greta developed to combat pelvic floor pain
• The importance of CONTINUING foundational work – even if you think you’ve been making progress
• How feeling stronger affects Greta’s energy and quality of life

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

Today we’re tackling a question we get a lot:

How soon can I get back to exercise after birth?

Our short answer? You can begin as soon as day one postpartum – so long as you do it the right way. We’re conditioned to think of postpartum exercise as all-or-nothing - like I can’t do my usual core weightlifting or yoga routine, so I’m just going to relax and wait.

But often we see moms lose several weeks or even months of fitness. When they start back up, they feel behind – or, they jump into things way too fast.

We’re going to give you the EXACT recipe for weeks 0 to 6 of what you can do before that 6-week check-up. So, if you want to get moving BEFORE your clearance, you can – so long as you move gradually, mindfully, and in the right order.

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

If you’d like our guidance for the first six weeks of your postpartum recovery, you can join our Weeks 0 to 6 Sacred Window Training course, which will guide you step-by-step through gentle movement practices and self-care routines.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

So often, during the third trimester of pregnancy, people stop working out.

A lot of moms are in conservation mode, feeling the weight of the baby on their pelvis. They’re fatigued, uncomfortable, lacking motivation, or they’re afraid, not sure what movement is safe for them and their babies.

But it’s important to keep moving in the third trimester – just at the right pace, with the right intensity. 

This is Part II of our behind-the-scenes look at the fitness program we created for the Daily Burn, an on-demand fitness platform. Baby Bump and Beyond features 30 unique workouts filmed in the Daily Burn’s New York City studios.

(If you’re still early in your pregnancy, be sure to check out our previous episode about adapting workouts for your second trimester.)

Today we hope to remove the challenge of staying in motion by talking about exercises you can safely do at the end of your pregnancy – and what’s more, how these exercises can prepare you for birth.

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

We work privately with moms who want to take an active role in creating strength, healing, competence, and independence, whether in your fitness, your birth, or in your active life as a mother. If you need more help feeling your best in pregnancy, reach out and see if we’re a good fit to work together.

Be sure to find a checklist of everything we covered today on our website.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

One of Kendra’s biggest frustrations during both her pregnancies was how EASY her prenatal programs were. She often felt she was being treated like a delicate flower.

This made her angry because pregnant people are strong, and because she was getting ready to give birth - one of the most physically challenging things she would ever do.

Today, we’re talking about exercises you can safely do in your second trimester of pregnancy and pulling back the curtain on our fitness program Baby Bump & Beyond, which features 30 unique workouts.

And it’s available on the Daily Burn, an on-demand fitness platform, and contains a mix of pregnancy-safe strength training, cardio, and yoga workouts, plus some tutorials about common concerns like diastasis recti and pelvic floor issues.

Months went into putting EVERYTHING we know into this program – including our hearts and a lot of sweat – and we hope moms listening can use this episode to evaluate other programs they might be considering during pregnancy training.

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Too many moms spend years feeling frustrated at the speed of their postpartum recovery. The real program: these moms haven’t yet figured out which phase of postpartum recovery they’re in. Take our postpartum pelvic floor and core strength quiz to find out where you are on your path to full recovery.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

No one is immune to trauma.

There are different kinds: acute (resulting from a single incident); chronic (repeated and prolonged); and complex (layers of trauma over a long period of time). 

We won’t go deeper than that in this episode, but let’s just agree that it’s pretty likely many of us will experience trauma as it relates to a mother’s experience. 

What’s important to note: trauma isn’t defined by WHAT happened, but how we EXPERIENCE what happened. 

This topic is so important, and it’s one of the reasons we started this podcast. Even if you’re like, “nope, there was nothing traumatic about my birth or postpartum!”, we still encourage you to listen.

It’s our belief that everyone can benefit from these approaches and techniques, especially when it comes to movement, and so today, we’re diving into trauma-informed fitness; why it’s necessary; and what you can gain by taking this approach. 

Resources & Links

If you need help feeling your best in pregnancy, birth, or postpartum, reach out and see if we’re fit to work together. 

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Birth is a HUGE event. 

Yet, so often we overlook that birth is going to have an imprint on our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls for life.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about birth stories. Specifically, why healing yours is crucial to your success as a mother. We’ll cover four tools to help you heal your story and tell some success anecdotes illustrating what can happen when you do!

Humans connect through storytelling. What we need most in motherhood, when we’re processing our birth, is a sense of connection. So if you’re willing to tell aspects of your story, you’re willing to open the door to healing. 

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Sometimes, new moms suffer from what we call “help fatigue.”

While in postpartum, we DEPEND on the help of other people, and so when it comes to physical recovery, some women hesitate because they know it means they’ll need help – hands-on help, help watching the kids, or maybe just emotional support.

Or, maybe they hesitate because they think their partners won’t get it. Maybe they feel guilty taking time for themselves. Or, maybe they get pushback from their partners! It’s not that bad. You don’t have to rush it. 

Recently we surveyed our Devoted Mamas community and saw 72 percent of moms said their partners don’t understand their postpartum challenges. 

Which is quite a lot! We see so many moms not fully recovering in postpartum in part due to their partners, so that’s why we’re tackling it today. 

We’ll talk about why postpartum fitness and recovery is so important, questions to ask yourself and your partner, and how, ultimately, feeling like “yourself” again ultimately comes down to YOU.

Resources & Links

If you’re not sure what you need but you do know you’re ready for a change, let’s chat. Listening to this episode is the first step. Leave a message on our podcast message board.

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Many moms struggle figuring out where (and when!) to start getting back into exercise postpartum.

Even people like Kendra who THOUGHT they knew a lot about fitness will find they’re in a whole new playing field post childbirth. 

The first question you might be asking: when even IS postpartum? In a recent survey we conducted in our community, 75% of moms said they thought postpartum was between six months and a year. 

The truth? Postpartum is indefinite. Once postpartum, always postpartum. You don’t stop addressing the effects of pregnancy just because a certain amount of time has passed. 

Case and point: we worked with a mom whose back was hurting all the time. Come to find out, the issue had to do with a deep and wide ab separation that had never healed from her last pregnancy TEN YEARS prior!

What you do now is important. It will affect you today, tomorrow, and years to come. So that’s what today’s episode is about: body changes during pregnancy; questions to ask before working out; and three key steps in your roadmap back to fitness.

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Be sure to check out the Devoted Mamas Postpartum Pelvic Floor & Core Assessment. 

Questions about how all this applies to YOUR body? Send an email to sisters@devotedmamas.com or head over to the podcast question page. 

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

What if we told you that, if you take the right steps, giving birth can actually be an ECSTATIC, empowering experience? That it can actually feel GOOD?

Today’s episode focuses on Nicole’s story. Nicole is the mom of a 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. She’s also a trauma-informed yoga facilitator, birth and postpartum educator, and our resident pregnancy and postpartum yoga expert and mindset ninja. 

She used her disappointing first birthing experience to have an ecstatic second one using yoga techniques that, in this podcast, she’s going to share with the rest of us. 

Our motherhood journeys were different in details, but each had a similar arc, with disappointing first pregnancies and transformative experiences the second time around. The hope is that, by sharing our stories, more women can avoid the mistakes we made and instead find joy, empowerment and strengths in their own journeys becoming mothers.

ADVANCE WARNING: this episode mentions infant loss and miscarriage for two minutes. If this is a sensitive topic for you, feel free to mute or skip over those two minutes, or refer to the show notes for highlights instead.

Notable Quote from Nicole

“Go for the best birth. Aim for it. Go for the best birth and postpartum experience you can imagine. Be bold, get help from people like myself and others of our generation who are seeing other possibilities. In some cases, that might mean you have to be willing to go first. You have to be that pioneer, the creative, the maverick, those archetypes right there.” 

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration. Have a question or story you want to share? Leave a note for us on our website!

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Welcome to Being in Motherhood! 

We are your hosts, Kendra Fitzgerald and Nicole Coons: sisters, moms, postpartum and pregnancy corrective exercise specialists, trauma-informed yoga teachers, and cofounders of Devoted Mamas, a company that helps women access their strength and vitality through the wild, sacred journey of motherhood.

This show is all about using your perfectly messy, absurd and marvelous experiences in motherhood as opportunities to hone your greatest qualities, because your family deserves the BEST of you – NOT the most of you.

We hope to help you gain the tools you’ll need to be a bold advocate for yourself in pregnancy, claim your joy in birth and find wholeness in postpartum.

Today we’ll tell you a little more about us – focusing on Kendra in this episode, Nicole in the next – and have a little fun with words of advice, a game of “would you rather,” true confessions, and some contemplation of what it means to make motherhood fit.

We hope you’ll join us!

Notable Quote from Kendra

“Motherhood doesn’t have to look a specific way. It doesn’t have to look how it looked for our mothers or grandmothers. We get to create a new definition of what motherhood looks like for us. Really, it’s about breaking free of the conditioning that a mother does this or that or the other thing, and defining motherhood on your terms.” 

Resources & Links

Learn more about Nicole and Kendra on their website, or follow @devotedmamas on Instagram for pregnancy and postpartum coaching and inspiration.

Have a specific comment or question for us? Ask us via our very cool voice notes page!

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

If you’re currently pregnant, check out our Expecting to Flourish membership, a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual community that we created to help you stay your strongest during pregnancy, physically practice for birth and move easily into early postpartum. Find out more at devotedmamas.com/flourish

Amidst the joys of a motherhood journey, there is an undercurrent of challenge unlike any other you’ll face in your life, requiring a different kind of strength than your pre-motherhood days. 

The current maternal healthcare system sets moms up to get weaker in pregnancy and start motherhood with a deficit of strength and energy. This means the vast majority of mothers are slogging through motherhood feeling weak and discouraged. It’s time for that to change.  

Each week, Pregnancy and Postpartum Exercise Specialists (and sisters!) Kendra Fitzgerald and Nicole Coons will bring you the deep conversations needed with the practical tips and knowledge moms need to make bold decisions, heal their bodies, and live their motherhood on THEIR terms. 

Welcome to Being in Motherhood!

If you’re postpartum and ready to start your core and pelvic floor recovery, check out our Postpartum Repair & Restore 8-week program with LIVE coaching. In this program, we guide you through the exact workouts you need to feel your muscles strengthening + the education and LIVE supervision you need to know you’re doing it right.  For more information, go to devotedmamas.com/repair

Erin is a wife and mom of two babes. She lives and loves in Denver, CO. As a licensed professional counselor, she runs Erin Levin Counseling, a private practice dedicated to supporting women as they work to become pregnant, during pregnancy and after bringing baby home. Erin is a hypothyroid managing, 2-time c-section, NICU graduating, toddler wrangling, working mom on a mission to help support the empowerment of motherhood. She has been working as a counselor in Colorado since completing her Master's Degree in Counseling in 2011.  Erin is a Licensed Professional Counselor and has focused her work on the complicated and intense dynamics around life transitions (a birth, a death, a breakup, a new job, a big move), female reproductive health, and creating a community of wellness. In today's episode, we talk all about the 4th trimester.