Running to the Core Podcast

This is an introduction to what is called Pregnancy Abdominal Bracing, with a short story about how one pregnant mum had less round ligament pain when walking once she learned how to do this exercise. One of the purposes of learning pregnancy abdominal bracing is to support the weight of the uterus as your baby or babies grow during your pregnancy. Specific focus is placed on the lower parts of your abdominal muscle wall, and this can be done while you are breathing normally. It should never feel uncomfortable, strained, cause any pain or any feeling of it being "off" to you. For more information read and follow the steps in the booklet by the Continence Foundation of Australia, which we assisted in developing, called Pelvic floor health for expectant and new mums. Read pages 11 to 13 for the steps. This booklet is available as a pdf download from The Continence Foundation of Australia website. Pelvic Floor Health for Expectant and New Mums | Continence Foundation of Australia Visit www.continence.org.au/resource/pelvic-floor-health-expectant-and-new-mums If you are a fitness professional, and want to know more about teaching your clients Pregnancy Abdominal Bracing there is a course called Antenatal Core Training where this is one of the main focus points. It is available from Fitpro in the UK. For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Studies have shown that not all women will do their pelvic floor exercises effectively, and in fact, sometimes the muscles have been shown to be going down, instead of up, for some women. As you can't see your pelvic floor muscles, it can be hard to tell, so when it is possible, seeking further advice from a pelvic health physiotherapist, especially if you are unsure, can help you to clarify how well you are using your muscles. In this solo podcast, Dianne outlines some basics that you can use as a starting point to connect to your pelvic floor awareness. While there are many other elements around pelvic floor muscle training and fitness that can be explored and need to be considered, in this podcast you can connect to some awareness aspects as you tune into your pelvic floor in the ways suggested. For more information visit: The Pelvic Floor First website at www.pelvicfloorfirst.org.au The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Often postnatal mums when asked to stand on one leg or test a lunge out for the first time, are surprised at how wobbly or unsteady they feel. As a starting point, gaining awareness, either during your pregnancy or after the birth, of your pelvis position is one step towards postnatal returning to fitness and running. One of my friends who returned to running triathlons after she had fully rehabilitated, had a photo taken early in the running leg and again later and the position of her pelvis when she was starting to fatigue more, was a lot more dropped from side to side with each step. In this solo podcast Dianne runs through some simple ideas for tests to begin to regain and connect to your awareness as your body recovers from the changes that occur during pregnancy and birth. For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au The International Postnatal Return to Running Guidelines can be sourced here at Absolute Physio : returning-to-running-postnatal-guidelines.pdf (absolute.physio)

In this solo podcast episode, Dianne talks about the term Preferential Recruitment. Preferential recruitment suggests that when you are lying down on your back to do a sit up or curl up, the rectus abdominis muscles, especially the upper segments, will work "preferentially" when you lift your head up. This is a term Dianne first heard over 20 years ago in a presentation by Physiotherapist Caroline Dowd, in South Australia. Consider how much your whole abdominal muscle wall has changed during your pregnancy, with the weight of your growing baby or babies inside the uterus being taken by the lower half of your abdominal wall. Postnatally, if you focus on sit ups as an exercise to tone and strengthen your abdominal wall, without some focus on and rebuild of the lower and deeper muscles, including their endurance function, then you could be working mainly your upper rectus abdominis. When you build the lower and deeper abdominal wall in the postnatal stages of recovery, as well as your upper rectus and obliques, you work to return the balance throughout your abdominal muscle wall. Finding someone to train you and give you a program that can be progressed at your own pace, can optimise your postnatal recovery. If you are a fitness professional, and want to know more, there is a 7 hour course called Early Postnatal Programming which goes into further details about the elements around postnatal retraining of the abdominal wall. This is available from Fitpro in the UK. For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

After a summer pause break, Dianne returns with some solo podcasts to give practical tips for instant use. Being a Mum often means that you need to be in a state of awareness and alertness on what's going on in your family with your children and / or baby, a lot of the day. Daily stressors can build up and last year in a podcast with Dr Cate Howell (number 54), on her book The Flourishing Woman, Dr Cate talked about "stress buckets". Carrying these "stress buckets" around can lead to muscle tension, tiredness and "stress effects" when they get full to overflowing, where "one more drop" is too much. Using breathing out as a focus during daily movement and household activities, can be one way to release some of the effects out of your body. A colour visualisation used with a breathing out focus is one "tool" or idea Dianne talks through in this podcast, which she goes through in more detail in the Pregnancy Visualisation and Relaxation Podcast number 37. Having daily practices including movement and exercise are other ways of releasing tension in your body as are stretches, and relaxation and meditation practices. Having several options for you to choose from and to "Go to" can help to reduce the build up in your "stress bucket or buckets." For more information visit: www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Angela North joins Dianne for a second podcast about Mindfulness at Play: Parenting healthy, happy children with old wisdom and new science, a book co-written with Dr Stephen McKenzie, published by Exisle Publishing in 2023. With 30 years of experience working with children, adolescents and their families, Angela employs play therapy, and is passionate about sharing strategies with parents, so that they may respond therapeutically to their own children’s needs. We discuss “Our child, our mirror”, which Angela writes about in the book. If we had a difficult time in our childhood, then we might struggle when our child reaches the same age. Developing an awareness of this helps you to become “a cycle breaker”, which is an idea that resonates with a lot of new parents. To assist with this, Angela suggests tools to develop your self-awareness further as you look at some of the events and experiences of your own childhood and reflect on how this may affect your parenting, bringing positive experiences and traits that you have now. We can start by focusing on ourselves, asking questions on where have I come from, what have I experienced, what has this done to my way of relating, and what are the potential hurdles that I might reach at my child’s different ages depending on the kind of care that I received at that time? Angela advises that we can shift our focus on strategies that affect the neural pathways in our brain and reduce the effect of stress hormones in our body, and Mindfulness at Play is all about this. “It is all about shifting stress in our own bodies and how we shift it with our children”. One of her tips is to “Choose a little less structure and a little more silliness, remembering to add in fun, as sometimes we can come to parenting as an extreme sport”. One book she recommends is The Power of Fun by Katherine Price – especially if you can’t remember the last time you just had fun, and laughed your head off. Angela emphasizes the importance of community and support as a parent, and not doing it alone, mentioning the book Radical intimacy by Sophie Rosa, which explores this further. Mindfulness at Play: Parenting healthy, happy children with old wisdom and new science, by Dr Stephen McKenzie and Angela North is available from Exisle Publishing at www.exislepublishing.com For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

In this podcast Kate Thomson from The Mamas Alchemist talks about how in her role as a Registered Midwife and a Chinese Medical Practitioner, she supports women holistically during their pregnancy and after the birth. In Chinese Medicine, the first 40 days after the birth are considered to impact the next 40 years of a mother’s life. Honoring the value of rest, harnessing support from partners, friends, family and available services and nutrition all play an essential role in postnatal recovery. Kate suggests from 34 weeks of pregnancy to double batch when cooking, to place one meal in the freezer to make life easier postnatally, however the quality of the food also matters. Nutrients are absorbed more easily from warmer foods such as soups, and stews, which helps healing after birth. Replenishment and nourishment of the body between pregnancies is also an important element to consider, as is giving your body appreciation for what it has done as you move through your journey of motherhood. Kate talks prolapse postnatally and how she uses acupuncture and herbal medicine in her role as a Chinese Medicine Practitioner, highlighting too that she works collaboratively with women’s health physiotherapists, and other health professionals. She encourages pregnant mums to prepare for their postnatal recovery, and to know the value of slowing down, using horizontal time for rest as much as possible, to help give the pelvic floor and body time to heal and recover. To find out more or to contact Kate visit: The Mamas Alchemist website at www.themamasalchemist.com Instagram: @themamasalchemist For more information visit The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Dr Cate Howell talks about her new book The Flourishing Woman - A mental health and well being guide, recently published by Exisle Publishing. Dr Cate Howell is a GP, therapist, researcher, educator and author with over 40 years of training and experience in the health sphere. She is passionate about the areas of mental health, wellbeing and counselling and currently, Cate is mostly involved in education and writing related in these areas. She has travelled internationally to present research findings and has been published in a number of academic journals. The author of five books, Cate was awarded a year 2000 Churchill Fellowship related to the study of anxiety and depression, and the Order of Australia Medal in 2012 for services to medicine, particularly mental health, and to professional organisations. In this podcast Cate talks about a range of aspects of mental health and wellbeing for women, which she has written about in her new book. These include: Tailored for women at every stage of life, The Flourishing Woman will show you how to unlock your full potential and truly flourish! To find out more about your strengths, using the quiz Cate refers to, visit VIA Institute on Character at www.viacharacter.org Visit Dr Cate's website for further resources including free mindfulness recordings at drcatehowell.com.au For further information visit The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Parenting affects every element of our lives, and in this podcast Psychologist and author Angela North, gives insights into how mindfulness can lighten the load of being a parent. Angela North and Dr Stephen McKenzie have written the book Mindfulness at Play: Parenting healthy, happy children with old wisdom and new science, recently published by Exisle Publishing. With 30 years of experience working with children, adolescents and their families, Angela employs play therapy, and is passionate about sharing strategies with parents, so that they may respond therapeutically to their own children's needs. In this podcast she shares some techniques for learning to use mindfulness that can be applied in moments of your day as a parent. These can be used from when your children are very young through to their teenage years. Angela talks about "choosing your own adventure" which means that you can take one page, a line, one story or a whole chapter, and use the tips that spark your interest and that you have the capacity for, when you read the book. When practicing mindfulness - we can get better at it. Tapping into the tools that you know, can help you to get out of your head and back into your body, which can help to reduce the effect of stress hormones. Using self compassion, you can learn to be less of the critic and more of a coach with the voice in your head, also teaching this to your children. Empathetic reflections is one strategy that Angela talks about in the book and in this podcast and explains how this can contribute to safety elements for your child as they become older. Mindfulness tools can bring us back to the moment where we don't have to do anything except be present. This can take the load off and help parenting to be far less stressful. Infants and children are inherently mindful, as they go from studying their fingers to stones on the ground in great detail. We all have that capacity and are wired that way from birth. Often in the western world we grow them out of mindfulness as we introduce structure very early in our society. With mindful awareness we can help them to retain this inherent mindfulness. Mindfulness at Play is informed by the latest research and is packed full of practical examples, case studies and activities. This is a comprehensive, one stop mindfulness resource for parents. The clear explanation of psychological principles will also help you, the parent, to achieve a happier, healthier, more mindful life. Mindfulness at Play: Parenting healthy, happy children with old wisdom and new science, by Dr Stephen McKenzie and Angela North is available from Exisle Publishing www.exislepublishing.com For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

This is a podcast that takes a deviation from our usual focus, and explores the book Untethered, Living the digital nomad life in an uncertain world, as Dianne talks to the author Nathan James Thomas. Untethered was published earlier this year, by Exisle Publishing. Nathan James Thomas bought a ticket for 20,000 kilometres on the Greyhound Bus network in Australia when he was seventeen years old. Over the next decade, he lived in China, Spain, Poland and Hungary, visiting and experiencing dozens of other countries along the way. In 2014, Nathan founded the digital travel magazine Intrepid Times as a vehicle for sharing stories from the road and as an excuse to meet and interview his favourite writers. It has since grown into a thriving global community of thousands of writers and travellers. His own travel writing has been published in places like Lonely Planet, Roads and Kingdoms and Outpost Magazine. With his two previous books, Fearless Footsteps and Travel Your Way, both published by Exisle Publishing, Nathan presents a vision of travel that is both challenging and humbling, an experience not of finding yourself, but of losing yourself. Nathan talks about what Untethered means to him, where travel becomes not a break from life but the life itself, and the way that the digital nomad does their everyday life. The drive to travel, and being overwhelmingly curious means that if that is the kind of person you are, a digital nomad is compelled to discover the next place. Nathan talks about the benefits he has found in building relationships over time with clients, aiming to help others learn from his experiences of being a digital nomad for nine to ten years now. In Untethered, Nathan enables you to peak behind the curtain at the real face of the digital nomad lifestyle, having interviewed a range of people for this book. He also talks about the challenges faced by the digital nomad, and talks on the podcast about some issues that contribute to digital nomad burnout. This book can help answer questions for those needing more guidance and insights into the digital nomad life. Untethered is available from Exisle Publishing at www.exislepublishing.com, from your local and online bookstores and from The Intrepid Times at www.intrepidtimes.com

Dr Abby Halpin is a Physical Therapist and Coach, and runs Forte Performance and Physical Therapy. Abby helps musicians, instrumentalists and performers feel and sound their best. She also works with athletes. With a doctorate in physical therapy and 13 years of clinical experience as a PT and personal trainer, Abby has carved out her path to include everything important – movement, music and making a difference. Abby is the host of the Play Life Loudly Podcast. In this podcast Abby talks about her role in this area, working with the pressure management systems, with the different diaphragms in the body, which include the breathing diaphragm, the pelvic diaphragm and the vocal folds. She talks about posture and outlines ways that she works with her clients to expand their capacity and improve their range of movement in their body, where it is needed, which in turn impacts their voice. Abby talks about how she explores inhalation and exhalation and what aspect of this might need to be worked on, and gives some "sound" examples that you can use. As Abby is pregnant when we recorded this podcast, we also discuss some aspects of pregnancy posture and how the breath can be used during labour and birth. To see Abby working the singer mentioned on the podcast visit. Breath.Move.Sing#15 Listen to the Play Life Loudly Podcast Visit Forte Performance PT Connect with Abby via Instagram For further information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

In this Part 2 of the podcast with Carrie Hall, Carrie goes through the breathing cycle of inspiration and expiration, and how you can become aware of feeling your rib expansion in 360 degrees directions, to the front, sides and back parts of your ribs. She explains how the diaphragm moves downwards, and when the pelvic floor is functioning normally it also moves downwards with inspiration and then upwards with expiration, during the breathing cycle. About Carrie: Carrie Hall has been a physical therapist since 1983, earning her undergraduate degree from Saint Louis University and graduate degree from Washington University in Saint Louis (WUSTL). Carrie’s philosophical approach toward physical therapy is founded in the movement system approach as developed by Shirley Sahrmann, PT, PhD, FAPTA, integrated with manual therapy and pain science. She has had the roles of clinical instructor and assisting teaching continuing education courses related to the movement system with Dr Sahrmann and fellow colleagues. She was co-author of Therapeutic Exercise: Moving Toward Function, now in its 4 edition. Carrie founded Movement Systems Physical Therapy in 1995, in Seattle, Washington which she sold after 27 years. She is now founder and owner of Sisu Physical Therapy and Mentoring Services, providing mobile PT and mobile/virtual clinical and business mentoring services. Carrie is also a longtime advocate for physical therapy with past APTA Washington Board and Committee positions as well as current Chair of Nominating Committee for APTA Private Practice. Carrie talks about the parallels she sees between a postnatal mum and a new born baby – who takes a full year to get up and walking, developing trunk, abdominal and neck muscle strength during this time as they move from lying to rolling to sitting and crawling, then move into standing. Mums who have just given birth have a stretched and lengthened abdominal wall and need to rebuild their core strength, and Carrie explains that using support garments or belts can help their diaphragm to work more effectively as a postural muscle. As you regain postural and movement awareness, consider moving through the developmental sequences with your baby. When you are on the floor on your hands and knees, pelvic rocking and the cat/cow exercises help to open up your ribcage, and allow expansion again, as this can be restricted during pregnancy. We take a step back to talk about the benefits of the hands and knees position for exercise during pregnancy especially in the later stages, to keep the abdominals, pelvic floor and intercostal muscles functioning well. Ideally this will make your postnatal recovery easier. Carrie also explains how the vagus nerve runs through the right side of the diaphragm and gets stimulated or ‘massaged’ during breathing when the diaphragm is moving up and down, which helps to stimulate more of the calming responses in your body, through the parasympathetic nervous system. Mindful breathing into the back waist area of your ribs, especially into the right side, helps gain the calming benefits from vagus nerve stimulation. Carrie highlights how this takes time and practice, using the building blocks of awareness and practice. This can in turn help improve your Heart Rate Variability, which helps your body respond in a more regulated way to life’s stressors. There is also a lifelong benefit to ensuring that your breathing muscles are functioning to their fullest potential, as with aging, having an effective cough is essential in the case of any respiratory infections. Regular exercise to use the respiratory muscles throughout your life is a key aspect of this. Carrie talks about incremental building up of exercise and mindful breathing and says “We can do anything incrementally, it just takes persistence”. Her final words of advice are “find exercise that you enjoy and enjoy it. Get out there and keep moving. And with your breathing, don’t bypass the ribs...

In this podcast Physiotherapist Rebecca Sabine talks about issues affecting postnatal return to running and how having a plan that targets the specific needs of your body helps as you return to running and exercise after having a baby or children. Rebecca (Beck) is a Women’s, Men’s and Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist (APA titled) with a special interest in recreational running. She is a Director of Vital Core Physiotherapy in the heart of Adelaide’s Eastern Suburbs, which has been established for 20 years this year, with her business partner Tory Toogood. Beck is a runner herself, having run park runs, marathons and ultra marathons. She is planning to do a half marathon at the end of this year. In her running group there are a wide range of ages up to sixty, seventy and eighty, which highlights the perspective of the longevity of running over your lifespan, as you take time to return to running postnatally. Whether your baby is 4 to 6 weeks old, 12 months, or 2, 5 or 10 years old, Rebecca encourages you to seek specific support from a women’s and pelvic health physiotherapist and ask the questions about “What will it take to get me back to running or playing sport”. Ideally when you are pregnant is a great time to make a plan with your physiotherapist for your postnatal recovery, but It’s never too late to get you back to a level of exercise if your children are older and you are now getting time for yourself. In this podcast Beck talks about the 6 R’s which are guidelines for the readiness to run and return to sport, including the review of your running as you improve, and how being aware of the specific needs of your body allows you to target the areas that are the most important for you. During pregnancy your shape changes, with the gluts, which are critical for running, often being weaker, and your abdominal wall and pelvic floor have also changed. Specific strengthening and training will help to reduce hip, back and lower limb problems as you return to running. Postnatal issues including reduced sleep, stress, your nutrition, and pregnancy and breastfeeding altering your hormonal state, all impact your ability to build muscle and gain strength. Beck highlights that “If you are not sleeping, you are not going to build muscle or perform as well, be it in running or in your chosen sport, and your body can’t heal let alone build if you are not fuelling it properly, which can be really hard to do in the early postnatal months when time for yourself is limited”. So, it is recommended that you build yourself up slowly as you return to running and use the support available from your Physiotherapist, who will take these issues into consideration. For more information visit: Vital Core Physiotherapy at www.vitalcore.com.au on Instagram @vitalcorephysio on Facebook Vital Core Physiotherapy on Linked In. To find out more about the 6 R's - Reframing return to sport postpartum: the 6Rs Framework. For an introduction to mSwing listen to Podcast 27: 5 Minutes on mSwing with Marietta Mehanni For more information visit The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Carrie Hall has been a physical therapist since 1983, earning her undergraduate degree from Saint Louis University and graduate degree from Washington University in Saint Louis. Her philosophical approach toward physical therapy is founded in the movement system approach as developed by Dr Shirley Sahrmann, Pt, PhD, who became Carrie's long time mentor. Carrie integrates this approach with manual therapy and pain science. She has had the roles of clinical instructor at several university settings and assisted teaching continuing education courses related to the movement system as developed by Dr Sahrmann and fellow colleagues. She is co-author of Therapeutic Exercise: Moving Toward Function, now in its 4th edition. Carrie was a presenter at the annual online Birth Healing Summit in 2023 with Lynne Schulte, PT, Founder of the Institute for Birth Healing. After 40 years of working as a Physical Therapist in the US, why does Carrie Hall call Breathing her Desert Island Exercise? This is the question that Dianne asked Carrie, that expanded into a long discussion where Carrie explains how breathing impacts the systems of the body, including the digestive, musculoskeletal and nervous systems. She talks about the benefits of mindful breathing practices that include expansion of the ribs, and outlines how the diaphragm moves in synchrony with the pelvic floor in normal rhythmical breathing. Often belly breathing bypasses the ribs to use the diaphragm, and Carrie outlines with detail how the ribs expand and how the muscles between each rib contribute to this. We need expansion of the ribs to be at the front, sides and the back, and often this is missed, so Carrie teaches how to include this in everyday life activities, so that it is not just one more thing on your "to do list". Breathing affects pelvic floor control, and practicing throughout pregnancy means that you can access this awareness both for during labour, and for afterwards when feeding and caring for your baby. Both relaxation and contraction of the pelvic floor are needed for it to work smoothly, coordinating with your breathing. An advocate of Physical Therapy Carrie outlines the benefits of getting a customised program to help you to focus your attention on the aspects of your breathing where you are having the biggest challenges. This can also be done when working with other health and fitness professionals with expertise in the area. Carrie's work encompasses the power of her new business name SISU, empowering her students and clients through "Gentle power coming together". She recommends this video of the breathing diaphragm and the pelvic floor working together, (it is in French) Roger Fiammetti respiration totale animation - YouTube You can connect with Carrie via Linked In The link to her article, My Desert Island Exercise by Carrie is available to read on Linked In. Therapeutic Exercise: Moving Toward Function is available here https://pt.lwwhealthlibrary.com/book.aspx?bookid=2296 To find out more about Heart Math, mentioned in the podcast, visit www.heartmath.com For further information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Paula Hindle Cofounded Unlocking Her Potential with Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer Libby Trickett and joins Dianne to discuss their UP Mums Holistic Postnatal Program. Paula is an Holistic Physio and Women's Health coach and Yoga teacher. Through the UP Mums Program Libby and Paula aim to provide a supportive community through their facebook membership, while helping you to enjoy Home Workouts that are Physio instructed Strength, Cardio and Core workouts. Their membership platform is beautifully layed out with easy to access sections, including their UP Mum Chill Zone, UpMum Chats and UPMum Postnatal Yoga Series. Libby and Paula have given a 30% discount off the full price to our listeners. Normally $149 you can use the code pregnancycentre at the checkout to buy the program for $99. Thank you Libby and Paula! To head over to the program page visit Unlocking Her Potential - Programs. Use the code: pregnancycentre To listen to Paula on our previous podcast together - see episode 40 on Wisdom from the Journey. For further information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Kelly Dean is the founder of The Tummy Team and a Physical Therapist with over 25 years of experience. Through finding out how to heal and recover from her own 6 finger diastasis (abdominal muscle separation), Kelly created functional core rehab programs as well as having one to one client appointments that are available internationally. In this podcast Kelly talks about how when postnatal mums can focus on core training and posture during daily activities, it is much easier for this to be sustainable in the recovery journey, which takes time. She and her team work with mums during pregnancy and after birth to help them set up their environment, including setting up their “feeding throne” for healthy alignment. When a mum is sitting to feed her baby every day for hours, her posture matters. It is like work, and if you were in a workplace, you would have an ergonomic set up, so taking time to set up your postnatal environment makes a difference to your early and ongoing recovery. Kelly explains how it is necessary to build your capacity, and not just power through, ignoring the warning signs your body is giving you at your current stage of recovery. This is also important for health and fitness professionals working with postnatal mums, to help find the right amount to “put on a mum’s plate”. Core rehab can help to build your emotional capacity as well as physical capacity and Kelly shares some of her insights in this area, including a story about a mum she saw early in the life of The Tummy Team. She has created a number of free videos to help mums see the difference in how to move well, and not so well, and has a podcast that includes stories of women on their journey of recovery, through working with The Tummy Team. For more information visit The Tummy Team website at www.thetummyteam.com Podcast by The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

David Greenwalt is a Certified Health Coach, fitness expert and author. In 1997 he discovered an evidence-based approach for getting off his own 50 excess pounds and keeping it off for 25 years. Since 1999, through his company Leanness Lifestyle University, David has been helping student members, from every walk of life, lose excess fat and keep the muscle. In this podcast David talks about Emotional Fitness being one of the pillars of fitness, which has a big impact upon other areas of health including exercise and nutrition. This in turn has an effect on how we show up in our parenting, in our relationships and in our work life. Postnatally the lack of sleep can impact emotional fitness, as it is harder to make measured decisions when we are tired. David talks about creating support systems when they are available as a strategy for dealing with the challenges faced by new parents, and also how putting yourself on your "to do" list is super important. One of the challenges David commonly sees people face daily is the amount of ultraprocessed foods available, and how awareness of this is one step in emotional fitness, when making food and nutritional choices for you and your children. He encourages you to talk to yourself with self compassion, and to not ruminate on your mistakes, and touches on another tool that helps if we 'slip' and regret our food choices. David is offering our listeners a free 2-week free trial at Leanness Lifestyle University (no card entry needed) at https://lluniversity.com/2weeksfree/ Visit Leanness Lifestyle University at www.lluniversity.com for more information. For more information visit The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Taryn Watson is a Women's Health Physiotherapist and one of the Directors of Fitright HQ in Applecross, WA, which is a Centre for Women's Health and Exercise. In this podcast Taryn talks with Dianne about what got her thinking about postnatal checks with physiotherapists and the many benefits of these being earlier 6 weeks. She explores why it is that we wait for the arbitrary 'magical' 6 week mark before many postnatal women start their reintroduction to exercise, and outlines what benefits a woman could gain from being seen earlier than 6 weeks. This can help to change the trajectory of her postnatal recovery, address any issues of pain and uncertainty about what exercises she can be doing during this early postnatal stage. Finding out about how to correctly activate and train the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles in the early weeks, and/or also having a plan for this in the later stages of pregnancy can help to optimise postnatal recovery. For women wanting to get back to running, they can begin their recovery journey and include functional leg exercises into their day, that can prepare them for their return to running assessment with their physiotherapist. To find out more about FitRight HQ, to make an appointment or attend an exercise class visit FitRight Women's Health On Instagram find Taryn at @fitrightphysio For more information visit The Pregnancy Centre at www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Alex Phillips is the co-Founder of Saint Belford and the Host of the Saint Belford podcast. She talks with Dianne about how self-care practices change with the different seasons of life, including during pregnancy and along the postnatal journey. What you put in your self-care toolkit can be adjusted over time, together with your habits and rituals. Alex highlights how learning to surrender and adjusting priorities during this season can help, and how reframing a challenging pregnancy experience can be used to assist with the adjustment into postnatal life. Alex talks about how using micro self-care rituals that only take one to two minutes, can compound over time, and that leveraging dead pockets of time such as when waiting for the kettle to boil provide opportunities to do this. Involving your kids in routines is another way to adapt if finding a window time for self-care practices is difficult. Pressing the pause button through three deep breaths is one example that Alex suggests and found powerful herself, to help to calm her nervous system to show up in a calmer state to her baby. This is one suggestion that any mum or mum-to-be can use. There is so much to remember in our days, and Alex gives tips on implementing reminders, as using only our memory is not a reliable tool. Using visual cues for prompts is one key she provides for being more consistent with the habits you want to maintain and uphold. To hear more from Alex visit the Saint Belford Podcast available on Apple and / or Spotify In Episode 35 she talks about Gentle (but essential) reminders for mums-to-be Visit the Saint Belford website at www.saintbelford.com.au For more information visit: www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Marietta Mehanni has had a passion for group fitness for over 30 years and has a range of aqua education and mentoring services for fitness professionals. In this podcast Marietta talks about the many benefits of exercising in the water for, both in a group fitness setting and when you are in the pool doing your own program. She talks about the varying resistance that working out in the water offers, which is well suited to postnatal mums returning to fitness and progressing their training. Aqua Gymstick is a great option as a training tool. Marietta describes this and how it can be used. Deep water running is also a great training modality especially if you are not yet ready to run on land and Marietta highlights important postnatal considerations. To see Marietta on YouTube visit: Marietta Mehanni - YouTube Visit Marietta's websites: Marietta Mehanni Education and Marietta Mehanni For more information visit The Pregnancy Centre