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Three stages, and one body that changes enormously. This page gathers what we do before pregnancy, during it, and after birth — along with the numbers behind each.
The part that is least talked about and is often the heaviest: pressure from family who keep asking, anxiety that returns every month as a particular date approaches, a marriage that starts to feel like a duty, and for some people an earlier loss they have carried alone.
What we do here is psychological, not medical. We do not carry out fertility investigation or treatment — that belongs to an obstetrician, and we would never suggest delaying a medical assessment.
For an uncomplicated pregnancy, ACOG recommends around 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week — it can be split into 10-minute blocks. The guide is not your heart rate but your ability to talk: you can still talk normally, but not sing.
Pelvic floor training during pregnancy is backed by reasonably strong evidence. A Cochrane review found that pregnant women who were not yet leaking, and who trained the pelvic floor during pregnancy, reported around 62% lower risk of urinary leaking late in pregnancy.
What we train: coordinated breathing, a pelvic floor that knows when to work and when to let go, hip strength for standing and stairs, and how to lift and turn in bed without loading the back.
What people most often bring here: an abdomen that still feels "open" down the midline (diastasis), a little leaking when coughing or jumping, a heavy or dragging feeling in the pelvis, and difficulty getting back to exercise because your body feels unstable.
Pelvic floor training after birth reduces incontinence, particularly when it is delivered with structured support rather than an instruction to "do your Kegels". We should also say this plainly: there are not enough data to be sure the effect holds beyond one year after birth, so this is something to keep doing, not something you finish.
On returning to running: the widely used guidance suggests a minimum of 12 weeks postpartum before any running — and even then only after passing strength and load-tolerance testing. After a caesarean it is often longer, because the incision needs time; the guidance does not put a number on it, so we judge that individually alongside your obstetrician. A diastasis does not automatically mean you cannot run; what decides it is whether you can already control abdominal pressure and take load through the abdominal wall while you run.
Yes, with a slow start: begin at 5 minutes a day and add 5 minutes each week until you reach 30 minutes. Avoid jumping straight into a demanding program or a new sport with high balance demands. If your pregnancy has complications, check with your obstetrician first.
Breathing work and gently reconnecting with the pelvic floor can usually start earlier than people expect, including after a caesarean. What has to wait is load: heavy lifting, demanding abdominal work, and impact sport such as running. We set the order and keep to the limits given at your postnatal check.
Common, but common is not the same as something you have to accept for good. Pelvic floor training delivered with support is shown to reduce it. If it is still happening months later, that is reason enough to have it looked at — not a reason to stop exercising or to stop laughing hard.
The figures and recommendations on this page come from the sources below. The links go to third-party sites.
This page is educational and does not replace an examination by a doctor. If your child is unwell, or something does not feel right to you, have them seen first.
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