Who You Are

You are a seeker. You don’t give up. You are a problem-solver. You are intelligent and interested in deep
health knowledge, but might not be a healthcare professional. You are curious. You might have had a
baby five months ago, five years ago, or five decades ago. Ever since you had your baby you may have
noticed changes in your body. Pains here or there. Sex doesn’t feel the same. Pooping and peeing is
different and sometimes not under your control. Maybe gestational diabetes or hypertension came
back; you had breathed a sigh of relief when it resolved after pregnancy thinking it gone for good.
Anxiety, irritability, depression, apathy, forgetfulness, or a foggy mind could have been written off as
“Mommy Brain.” You could have been told that the changes you notice are a normal part of being a
mom, or worse, a normal part of aging. But, you aren’t sure. That doesn’t seem true. You have seen
naturopaths and PTs, chiropractors and acupuncturists, urogynecologists, neurologists, and
gastrointestinal specialists. But still, you aren’t right. These treatments help some, but it doesn’t last, or
there is something that has yet to be addressed. You want to feel whole. You want your body back and
your life back. You are willing to make the lifestyle and thought-pattern changes that are required to
experience the change you want. Whether you are 25, 45, or 65 this postpartum rehab is for you. It is
not too early. And it is never too late.

What is the problem

Why are you even having to deal with this? The problem is two-fold. One: You don’t live in Taiwan. And
two: our healthcare system is set up as silos for specialists who have difficulty seeing how the body
functions as a whole. The bias of our healthcare system is toward pathology. So if someone has a
functional problem, biomedicine’s primary impetus is “watchful waiting,” suggesting the cause is stress,
or suggesting you see someone else, maybe even someone in alternative medicine. In the meantime you
don’t feel good and are trying to figure out things for yourself. If you do go to someone in alternative
medicine these folks very often also function in silos and have a tendency to see the same type of
patient and do the same type of workup over and again. A chiropractor tends to see everything as a joint
or nerve problem. A massage therapist tends to see everything as a muscle or fascia problem, a
naturopath may see things as a chemical imbalance problem. Acupuncturists could have the most
comprehensive approach in all of alternative medicine, but there is a lot of variance within the field, so
your experience will largely depend on the training of your acupuncturist.
Ok. So the silo problem we talked about. But, Taiwan? What I’m talking about here is tradition. In
Taiwan Tso-Yueh-Tzu is a 30 day postpartum ritual that is practiced. After a woman has a baby, she lives
in a spa-type setting for a month where she is nourished, rested, and cared for along with her baby.
Many cultures have similar concepts. In Latin America the forty days following birth are called the
cuarentena. During that time the family and friends take care of mom and the household and she is
devoted to caring for her baby and for herself.

The Vedic texts of India describe the six weeks following birth as a sacred window in which the mother

must eat certain foods and abstain from most activities.
They say what is done in the 40 days following birth is so potent, it predicts the next 40 years.
In our culture we lack a tradition of caring for postpartum women. I’ll never forget taking a class on
women’s health and the lecturer was two days postpartum with her newborn in arms! I felt so guilty
being there, thinking “That lady needs to be home with her baby!” If in our culture we do not have
traditions or taboos around the six weeks postpartum, much less do we have any traditions or practices
supporting the mother’s physical body recovery from pregnancy and birth. The assumption is that the
body heals on its own. And when it doesn’t…maybe that’s your new normal or maybe you start the
quest seeking health.

The problem is:

You are a complex creature living in a reductionistic healthcare system that doesn’t
realize the need for universal postpartum renewal.

Why This Work Matters

After having a baby all women deserve to have postpartum renewal. Pregnancy and birth (whether
vaginal or cesarean) have profound impacts on the body that the body has tremendous difficulty
recovering from on its own. Sometimes women don’t notice these changes, sometimes they become the
new normal. Sometimes noticeable symptoms take years or decades to emerge. But it is my firmly held
belief that just as women cannot birth alone and require the assistance of an obstetrician or midwife
(and hopefully a partner or a doula, too!), women cannot recover from pregnancy and birth alone and
require the assistance of an individual trained in postpartum rehabilitation. But why can’t we birth
alone? Why can’t we heal alone? The answer is the same for both questions: Because we are bipedal
creatures with a relatively small pelvis, living in a field of gravity, giving birth to relatively big-headed
babies. Other creatures that are not bipedal and who do not give birth to big-headed babies can and do
birth alone and heal from birth alone. But not us. We are designed to need each other. But we live in a
culture that has not recognized that necessity for postpartum recovery.

The postpartum renewal that you need and deserve

can take place as early as three to six months
postpartum, or as late as decades later. It is never too late to experience postpartum renewal. In my
practice I often see women who have had pelvic floor physical therapy. It helped at first, but then the
benefits began to fade. I notice in these women often there are “upstream” problems that make it
difficult for the pelvic floor work to make a permanent difference. If the four transverse planes in the
body are not in right relationship, if the postural muscles are not firing properly, if the drainage system
of the body is not pulling up the blood and lymphatics adequately, if the chestwall is not expanding with
each breath it is easy for the bladder to slip and the uterus to slide back.
This approach is different because it does not stick to one region of the body, like the pelvis. It does not
stick to one system of the body, like the myofascial system. And it does not confine itself to the physical
body.