“You’ll soon bounce back.”

The pressure to ‘bounce back’ after having a baby can sometimes feel like it’s coming at us from all angles. In my work as a pre and postnatal expert, I see first hand how this culture quietly chips away at women’s confidence. From glossy magazine covers with click bait headlines to carefully curated social media posts clogging up our feed and fitness programmes promising “8 week abs”… It can feel like society is showing us that the norm is for women to snap back into shape post-birth and that our priority must be getting back into our ‘pre baby jeans’.

Honestly, it’s exhausting seeing women feel as though they have somehow fallen short because they haven’t lost weight or returned to fitness quickly postpartum. Because postnatal health is about so much more than a number on a scale and in fact, returning to intense exercise too soon can be more detrimental to our long term health then a steady and gradual return to exercise.

If it’s alright with you, I’d like to start this passage by shattering another myth and that’s the ‘prebaby-body’ you might hear about… it doesn’t exist. Once we’ve been through pregnancy and childbirth we will never be ‘pre-baby’ but that doesn't mean our body can’t be equally as healthy, strong, mobile, perhaps even more so than before we became mothers.

But that absolutely takes time! And I’m not just talking about physical fitness. Whole body health is a beautiful balance between body and mind. Having trained women for over a decade and as a mum of four myself, one thing is certain. Postnatal recovery is different for every woman. And not just every woman, but each and every pregnancy and postpartum period moves at its own pace. After my first son was born, my recovery seemed fairly straight forward but for my second postpartum period three years later and certainly after my cesarean with my twins two years after that, my recovery moved slower still.

But slow progress is still progress. And we should respect our body, throughout the journey. For everything it has done and continues to do. It gets us up, it lifts and carries our babies. Our body can help us feed our newborn and hug our toddlers, it thinks, learns, remembers, heals and recharges within hours of sleep.

Somehow we seem to have reduced the worth of a woman’s body down to a number on a scale or a number in the label of our jeans and as a society we have become obsessed with tracking our numbers and allowing that to dictate our health… what about if we tapped into our intuition more?

How do you feel? How are your energy levels, your sleep pattern, your immune system and gut health? Do you have the strength to play with your children, lift your car seat or push the pram uphill? Is your pelvic floor functioning and activating when you need it?

Our metrics don’t need to tell us that… we can feel our health for ourselves.

And possibly most importantly, postpartum health isn’t just about our physical goals and aesthetic results. It’s my belief that true health comes from a synergy between body, mind and spirit.

After my first pregnancy I experienced five years of crippling anxiety and OCD and movement became a key pillar of my recovery. By using all holistic treatments such as talk therapy, hypnotherapy and exercise, I began to slowly find a way out of the spiral of anxious thoughts.

The mind-body connection is incredibly powerful. Too powerful to summarise in a paragraph, but in short exercise not only stimulates a hormonal shift that lowers stress and improves our mood, but it also helps us to release physical tension which can unlock emotional release and provide stability too. Movement is a human instinct which grounds us and encourages our mind to reset from anxiety and see things with a clearer, calmer perspective.

Finding balance among our mind, body and soul can take time… but that’s ok… in fact, that’s absolutely how it should be.

Taking time to grow into our new role as a mum. During motherhood exercise and movement can be an essential part of sustaining a calm and positive parenting experience. Through the ever changing (sometimes hectic) journey of motherhood!

For true health let’s think sustainable rather than super-fast. How we feel first and the results will come. Knowing that postnatal recovery takes time. Your body is beautiful exactly as it is. Stretch marks, wrinkles, rolls, scars and all. Each one a testament to the beautiful and life changing journey of motherhood. Remembering that we should always prioritise moving from a place of honouring our body rather than exhausting it.

True health isn’t a number on a scale. It’s knowing when to move, when to rest and when to refuel. Respecting our bodies for everything they do daily and being proud of ourselves, no matter where we are on the journey.

Shakira shares her special early motherhood moment; feeding her twins.