Ginger Cofield Lakhani

Q & A WITH AMY BAUMGARTEN, HOLISTIC MOVEMENT COACH

Amy is the creator of HomeBody, a movement approach that offers alignment-based holistic coaching for bodies in various stages of healing. She specializes in the unique care needed to support fertility, pregnancy and postpartum bodies. By combining an intuitive somatic approach with anatomically-based insight, Amy focuses on alleviating joint pain, rebalancing movement patterns, and developing strength from the inside out. Amy incorporates her ten years of experience teaching Pilates, her education in embodied anatomy (Body Mind Centering®) and pre- and postnatal yoga to guide her approach. For more about Amy’s practice and offerings, please visit homebodymovement.com or follow along at @homebodymovement.

What do you think are some of the most important areas of focus for women and their bodies throughout pregnancy and post-labor?

As a holistic movement coach specializing in perinatal wellness, I believe the most empowering thing mothers can do is learn how to move in relationship to their bodies’ needs and desires throughout pregnancy as preparation for the more challenging postpartum period. There is much more head space before the baby comes for moms to build a strong self-care practice. This practice builds confidence, strength and resilience, and supports mamas during childbirth and beyond.

I recommend a prenatal/postpartum self-care practice that includes diaphragmatic breathing (described below) and a training of the deep core. The muscles of the deep core are the most important aspect of perinatal fitness. They are closest to the spine and internal organs, providing deep postural alignment and effortless strength. During pregnancy, the deep core muscles work together to counteract the pressures of an expanding womb. They are the most affected part of pregnancy and childbirth, requiring enough elasticity to respond to a growing baby and enough tone to rebuild structural support during postpartum.

Many women might say that pregnancy is a temporary state and that aches and pains are just part of the process. What would your advice be to them?

The naturally occurring symptoms of pregnancy are usually not life-threatening, so most mamas ignore their pain. Sometimes that response is necessary - the demands of life, especially if you’re working full-time or already taking care of young children, aren’t always willing to wait for your pain to go away. But the longer these symptoms are ignored, the worse they become until they eventually turn into chronic health issues.

I’d like women to remember that childbirth is a marathon that begins well before conception. How your body adjusts is dependent on the ways you’ve moved your body up to this point. The shapes you regularly make or how much you've exposed yourself to endurance, strength, agility, and recovery all have their effects on the ability of your tissue to expand and adapt to any number of daily needs and stresses. Likewise, the way you choose to move and exercise before and during pregnancy has a direct effect on your body’s ability to recover after childbirth.

Rather than resolving to push through the pain as a temporary state, treat discomfort during and after pregnancy as a message from your body - a reminder to tend to yourself. Be your own mother.

How much do you focus on breath and breathing when working with women during and after pregnancy?

Breath underlies all other healthy, functional movement. If you’re not breathing well, you’re disconnected from your wholeness. That’s why the diaphragm, or the breathing muscle, is the first part of any deep core exploration.

The deep core is made up of postural muscles that don’t contract in the same way our gluts or biceps do. In fact, each of the deep core muscles’ ability to contract relies on their relationship to the breath.

As with all experiential learning, the body is best understood and moved in a layered fashion. Just as a beginner drumming student will learn a simple rhythm before adding additional beats, integrating the deep core into a safe exercise program requires layering complicated movement patterns over the most basic (i.e., natural breath). I consider my work to be breath-centered functional movement for the empowered mama.

Are there any specific exercises you can recommend?

My programs teach mothers the foundational exercises that specifically target the deep core. Every lesson begins with noticing how you breathe naturally. If breath is considered the underlying process for all other healthy movement, then we want to strengthen the breathing muscle early on. All other exercises are layered into the movement practice on top of full, open breath support.

The exercise below is called Diaphragmatic Breathing. It helps calm the nervous system, relieves shortness of breath, massages the internal organs, and oxygenates the blood. The diaphragm is a deep postural muscle and one of the four deep core muscles. When it and your breathing is well-organized, you stand up straighter and with more ease:

Position: Seated or standing. Area of Focus: Movement of breath and ribs. Visualize: Diaphragm rising and falling.

1) Inhale through the nose and visualize your breath moving down through the torso.

2) Exhale and notice how the breath rises and is pushed out through the lips (imagine blowing up a balloon).

3) Repeat 5 times.

Once you grasp the movement of the inner diaphragm, try the second part of this exercise:

4) Hold rib cage on either side.

5) Inhale and widen the ribs.

6) Exhale and keep widening the ribs for as long as you can.

7) Repeat 3-4 times.

8) Now, breathe normally and notice the difference. Do you feel more space inside your body?

How much focus do you think should be placed on diet? Are you aware of any specific foods that can help eliminate or alleviate symptoms of a weak core in conjunction with exercise?

It all matters. We are one integrated system, and the health of that system is dependent on the health of all its composite parts. Breath and movement help rid the body’s articulating parts of any stagnant energy. The absorption and digestion of food is another form of movement. When we eat the foods that nourish us, they eradicate stagnancy and inflammation from within the gut - our second (some say first), brain.

Nutrition is an area that I’m still learning about. I look to other experts to learn what’s important to eat. Some of the best advice I’ve heard is to eat what you feel like eating while pregnant. This is a time when your intuition is most clear, so learn to cultivate that intuition by listening to your cravings.

I’ve also been studying herbal medicine this past year. I’ve been exploring the best herbs for fertility, pregnancy and postpartum. Some herbs to note for the child-birthing year are nettles, red raspberry leaf, red clover, and oat straw. Check out Susun Weed’s Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year for more specific insight.

My first pregnancy was very hard on my body. I experienced nausea and migraines on a regular basis for close to six months. I was working full-time and commuting from Brooklyn to New Jersey three days a week, only to sit in front of a computer for the majority of the eight plus hours I was there. Do you have any recommendations for pregnant women as to how they can take care of their bodies under demanding schedules?

I always stress the importance of self-care during the prenatal period. If you carve out the time now, you’ll have a solid practice to draw upon when life gets really busy with a newborn. There are always tons of realities and distractions to put self-care low on the priority list, but there are easy ways to incorporate it in small moments throughout your day.

For instance, drink medicinal teas in the morning and evening. Bring them to work with you - they’ll be a nice companion when you need some comfort throughout the day. The herbs I mentioned above contain high levels of minerals, iron and calcium that help prevent morning sickness and muscle cramps, reduce hemorrhoids, and tone the uterine walls in preparation for birth and recovery. These teas are easy to make - simply steep the leaves or herbs in a Mason jar overnight and strain the tea in the morning. You can drink it warm or cold. As with anything, drink them in moderation and do only what feels good to you. Fenugreek, for instance, isn’t recommended during pregnancy but is known to help with milk production after birth, so do your research and check with your doula, midwife or doctor if you’re unsure of what’s beneficial at any certain stage of your pre- or postnatal journey.

Take a break during the workday or in the evenings and practice breathing, stretching and moving in ways that feel good. Connect with your baby by sensing what movements they like. The more you discover your comfort in your pregnant body, the better prepared you and your baby will be for childbirth. Remember, the goal is to find a deep surrender within to allow your baby to emerge through your body. Finding your comfort over and over again affords you the ability to relax and allow your baby to flow through you into the world.

What would your advice be to women like me who had every intention of a natural, vaginal birth and their deliveries ended in emergency C-sections? How different is the core recovery from a vaginal birth?

You are perfect and your birth was perfect. That’s all there is to it. None of us have every bit of control over what happens.. You do your best to prepare you body, mind and spirit, and after that you have to surrender. I encourage surrender in the birthing process with the caveat that you have a good birth team in place to be your advocate at high-stress moments.

The recovery for C-section births is different than vaginal birth in experience, but not in practice. By that, I mean the exercises are very similar, but those who have had a C-section will work harder to reintegrate the area. It may take a long time to recover sensation in your lower abdomen. You can encourage a faster recovery by massaging your C-scar everyday. A great time to do this is in the shower or while in bed.

At your 6 week check up, many doctors focus on ensuring there’s no infection to the area and then deem you healed. But as anyone who has gone through major surgery knows, that’s just the beginning of your healing journey. Scar tissue does not only lie on the surface of the skin. It works like a root system, growing deeper through layers of tissue the longer that it’s allowed to do so. I highly recommend that everyone with a C-section scar take time each day to get to know it intimately. It’s a part of you now - it is you - and it can’t be ignored. Massage the area and gently break up scar tissue that could make future core stability challenging. This is also a good way to build compassion for what your body has been through and to marvel in its inherent wisdom.

Is there anything we haven’t discussed that you’d like to add?

I recently attended a La Leche League meeting with my sister and her newborn. This friendly group of empowered mothers share information about safe breastfeeding protocols along with a wide variety of baby care techniques. They disseminate information that is backed by scientific studies, along with tried and true experience. They are a community of mothers helping mothers, reminding each other not to judge their experiences and to take the information that works for them while leaving the rest. I love this gentle reminder for mothers to listen to their inner wisdom in determining what’s right for their babies.

Every time I begin working with a mother, I offer her a recorded meditation that helps her tap into her womb wisdom. This is what I call a woman’s inner guidance, her intuition, her body wisdom. When she taps into it, she can discern what is right for her and her family. I encourage all mothers to find the community that helps them tap into their own intuitive powers, supporting their ability to heal and nurture for years to come.