You have had your baby. You are exhausted, emotional and your body feels completely different to the one you had a year ago. At some point between the feeds and the sleepless nights, you start thinking about exercise again. Maybe you miss the way training made you feel. Maybe you just want to feel strong in your own body again. But you are not sure what is safe, what is too soon and what you should actually be doing.

I hear this from mums every week in practice. And the first thing I want you to know is that there is no single date or magic number of weeks where everything clicks back into place. Your recovery depends on how your delivery went, how your body is healing and what you are working towards. But there are clear, evidence-based principles that take the guesswork out of it.

When can you start?

Sooner than you might think for gentle movement, and later than you might hope for high-impact exercise.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG, 2020) is clear that physical activity in the postpartum period is safe and desirable in the absence of complications. If you were active before and during pregnancy, you can resume exercise gradually. After a vaginal delivery, gentle walking and pelvic floor exercises can begin within the first few days when it feels comfortable.

If you had a caesarean section, your timeline is a little longer. You have had abdominal surgery and the tissue needs time to heal. Gentle walking can usually start within the first week or two, but higher-intensity exercise and anything that loads the abdominal wall significantly should wait until at least six weeks, and only after clearance from your obstetrician or midwife.

The first six weeks

This phase is about recovery, not fitness. Your body is healing, your hormones are all over the place and you are running on less sleep than you thought was humanly possible. Be kind to yourself here. The goal is to lay the foundation for what comes later.

Walking. This is the single best exercise in early postpartum. Start with short, comfortable distances and build gradually. If your bleeding (lochia) increases after a walk, you have done too much. Scale it back.

Pelvic floor exercises. Start these as early as you feel ready, even in the first few days. I know they feel like nothing is happening at first, especially if you cannot feel much down there yet. That is normal. Keep at it. A Cochrane review of 46 trials involving over 10,000 women found that pelvic floor muscle training reduces the risk of urinary incontinence postpartum (Woodley et al., 2020). Your pelvic floor has been under significant load for nine months and it needs targeted attention to recover.

Breathing and gentle core activation. Diaphragmatic breathing with gentle transverse abdominis activation helps you reconnect with your deep core system. This is not about getting your abs back. It is about retraining the coordination between your pelvic floor, diaphragm and deep abdominal muscles, which have been working as a team for your whole life and now need to find each other again.

What to avoid. High-impact exercise, heavy lifting, running, sit-ups, crunches and anything that causes pain, heaviness in the pelvis or increased bleeding.

Six to twelve weeks

This is where things start to feel more like exercise again. Your six-week check with your doctor or midwife is an important milestone, but it is a medical clearance, not a green light to do everything at once. I see a lot of mums who go straight from that appointment back to their old gym class and wonder why something does not feel right. Think of it as permission to progress, not permission to go back to where you were.

Resistance training. You can begin with bodyweight exercises and light resistance, focusing on glutes, legs and upper body. Squats, lunges, glute bridges and rows are good starting points. Progress the load gradually over weeks, not days.

Core work. By now you can progress from basic breathing exercises to more functional core work. Dead bugs, bird dogs and side planks are effective progressions. Avoid traditional crunches and sit-ups. They load the linea alba and are not helpful for rebuilding core function, no matter what you see on social media.

Low-impact cardio. Cycling, swimming (once any bleeding has stopped and wounds are healed) and the cross-trainer are all good options that build fitness without the impact loading of running.

What about diastasis recti?

Diastasis recti (separation of the rectus abdominis muscles) is something almost every new mum worries about. A landmark study by Sperstad and colleagues (2016) found that 60% of women have a measurable separation at six weeks postpartum and a third still have one at 12 months. It is a normal response to pregnancy, not something to panic about.

I know it can feel alarming when you press your fingers into the gap and feel how much space is there. But the focus should be on restoring function rather than obsessing over the width. Progressive core strengthening, starting with deep core activation and building toward more demanding exercises, is the most effective approach. If you are unsure, I can assess it in practice and guide your exercise selection from there.

Returning to high-impact exercise

High-impact activities like running, jumping, HIIT, group fitness classes and court sports load your pelvic floor with two to three times your body weight on every landing. That is why the return to impact needs to be managed carefully.

A 2024 Delphi consensus statement published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (Christopher et al.) recommends a minimum of 12 weeks postpartum before returning to high-impact exercise. This is not arbitrary. It reflects the time needed for pelvic floor and connective tissue recovery after pregnancy and delivery.

Before you return to impact, you should be able to:

Walk briskly for 30 minutes without symptoms
Perform single-leg balance, single-leg squats and calf raises without pelvic floor symptoms
Have no urinary leakage with coughing, sneezing or jumping
Have no pelvic heaviness or dragging sensations during or after exercise

If any of these are not yet there, that is okay. It is not a failure. It just means your body needs more time and targeted preparation before taking on impact loading.

When you are ready, build back gradually. If running is your goal, start with short intervals within a walk and extend them over several weeks. If you are returning to a gym class or sport, start at reduced intensity and volume. The principle is the same regardless of the activity: progress the demand in stages rather than jumping back to where you left off.

Exercise, mood and mental health

This is the part I wish more new mums knew about. A 2025 systematic review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (Deprato et al.) analysed 35 studies involving over 4,000 women and found that postpartum exercise reduced the odds of postpartum depression by 45%.

The amount needed? About 80 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. That could be four 20-minute walks, two short gym sessions or honestly just getting out of the house and moving your body in whatever way feels good. You do not need to be smashing it in the gym to get the mental health benefit. A walk with the pram counts.

Does exercise affect breastfeeding?

No. I get asked this all the time and it is one of the most persistent myths in postpartum fitness. ACOG (2020) is clear: moderate exercise does not affect breast milk composition, volume or infant growth. You can train and breastfeed without concern. Just make sure you are eating and hydrating well, which you should be doing anyway.

Low back and pelvic pain after birth

Around one in four mums experience persistent low back pain or pelvic girdle pain after birth (Wiezer et al., 2020). If you had back or pelvic pain during pregnancy, you are more likely to carry it into the postpartum period.

This is where I see a lot of mums get stuck. The pain makes you nervous about exercise, so you avoid it, which leads to deconditioning, which makes the pain worse. It becomes a cycle. The answer is not more rest. It is the right kind of movement, progressed at the right pace, with someone guiding you through it.

How chiropractic care helps

Postpartum recovery is about more than just getting back to exercise. Your body has been through nine months of change followed by the most physically demanding event of your life. The ligamentous laxity from relaxin, the postural shift from carrying and feeding, the abdominal wall changes, the pelvic floor load. All of it affects how your body moves and functions now.

Pelvic and spinal alignment. Pregnancy shifts your centre of gravity forward and increases the curve in your lower back. These postural changes do not reverse overnight. Chiropractic adjustments help restore normal pelvic and spinal joint function, which reduces pain and creates a better foundation for exercise. A systematic review by Weis and colleagues (2020) found moderate, favourable evidence for spinal manipulation in postpartum low back pain.

Assessing readiness to progress. We assess your core function, pelvic floor control, joint mobility and overall movement patterns to help determine when you are ready to progress to the next stage of training. This takes the guesswork out of the process.

Treating what hurts. If you are dealing with low back pain, pelvic girdle pain, rib pain, wrist pain from feeding or neck and shoulder tension from carrying your baby, we can treat it. Resolving pain early means you can get back to exercise sooner and more confidently.

Exercise programming. We prescribe targeted exercises to rebuild your core, pelvic floor and overall strength. These are specific to your stage of recovery and your goals, whether that is getting back to running, returning to the gym or simply being able to pick up your toddler without pain.

A simple framework

Recovery is not linear and no two postpartum journeys look the same. But this general framework gives you a structure to work with:

Days to 6 weeks. Walking, pelvic floor exercises, diaphragmatic breathing, gentle core activation. Build gradually. Listen to your body.
6 to 12 weeks. Add bodyweight and light resistance training. Progress core work. Low-impact cardio. Get assessed if anything does not feel right.
12 weeks onwards. Consider returning to running if you meet the readiness criteria. Progress resistance training. Reintroduce sport-specific demands gradually.

If something does not feel right at any stage, that is your body telling you it needs more support, more time or a different approach. It is not a reason to push harder.

Getting back to it

You do not need to wait until everything is perfect to start moving. But you do need to be smart about how you progress. The right guidance early on prevents problems later and gets you back to feeling like yourself again.

If you are postpartum and want to return to exercise safely, or if pain is holding you back, I would love to help. I work with new mums regularly and I understand what your body is going through.

Get in touch or book an appointment.

References

POSTPARTUM EXERCISE: WHEN AND HOW TO SAFELY RETURN TO TRAINING AFTER BIRTH