Postnatal Pilates: A Recovery and Strength Guide for Life

“A straight-talking guide, complete with tailored exercises and posture tips that can be incorporated into your everyday life” ―New!

A postnatal recovery program aimed at all mothers, offering a Pilates regimen based on up-to-date research on pelvic floor and abdominal healing.

This is a straight-talking, woman-to-woman postnatal recovery guide with a twist: based around Pilates fundamentals and a progressive Pilates program tailored for postnatal recovery, this book will enable women to establish good posture and breathing habits for life as well as rebuilding strength after birth.

Pelvic floor dysfunction is a real issue, affecting 75% of women in their lifetime. We have a culture of suffering in silence, and currently many women simply accept postnatal issues such as pelvic floor weakness and abdominal separation, which can be a cause of pain, embarrassment and mental health problems. Postnatal Pilates is a guide to taking control of postnatal recovery, empowering women with robust information and techniques to take their recovery into their own hands, as well as providing essential signposts on when to seek professional guidance.

Posture tips are easily incorporated into day-to-day life (breastfeeding, pushing the buggy, at your desk, picking up your toddler) and the book also features bite-sized health, fitness and wellbeing advice throughout, along with tips for dealing with the physical and mental stresses of early motherhood. Exercise routines are broken down into 10/20/30-minute sessions so that women can realistically aim to commit to them around life with a baby.

Foreword by Lynne Robinson, Pilates guru and founder of Body Control Pilates

Anya Hayes is a Body Control Pilates instructor who has been working with pregnancy and postnatal clients for 10 years, with advanced pregnancy and postnatal training, including Pilates for caesarean recovery, diastasis repair and extensive pelvic floor further education. She is currently working with a team of postnatal experts (two NHS doctors in obstetrics and gynecology, a women's health physio and a postnatal PT) creating a campaign to tackle the postpartum care referral pathway system, trying to bring awareness to the area and ultimately ensure that all women receive the care that they deserve after birth. She is a health and wellbeing writer specializing in parenting and maternal mental health, and author of Pilates for Pregnancy, Bloomsbury 2018.