Dr Alessandra Demarte, principal chiropractor at Heart & Soul Chiropractic in Mandurah, talks with Dianne about pregnancy and postnatal chiropractic care. Dr Alla has a special interest and training in pregnancy and paediatrics, and explains how chiropractic care can support women throughout pregnancy as their body changes, with gentle techniques that are modified for each trimester. Gentle chiropractic adjustments can help to keep the spine and pelvic moving well, reduce stress on ligaments, and support the nervous system. Dr Alla explains about the nervous system, how nerve pathways influence the uterus and cervix during labour, and how working on the spine and pelvic balance may assist with birth preparation. Postnatally, as mums return to fitness, Dr Alla recommends getting support for any pelvic joint pain, or upper back tension, and rebuilding deep core and pelvic stability steadily. For further information on the podcasts mentioned in our conversation: Podcast 61 - Pregnancy abdominal bracing Podcast 59 - How is your pelvis levelling? To find out more about Heart & Soul Chiropractic or to contact Dr Alessandra Demarte, visit the website at www.heartandsoulchiropracticmandurah.com.au Or follow on Instagram @heartandsoulchiromandurah and Facebook - Heart & Soul Chiropractic Mandurah For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Carrie Hall, PT, joins the podcast again to talk about her fascination with the feet.

She talks about some of the changes to the foot that can occur during and after pregnancy, which for some women can include going up a shoe size. The foot can become longer and the arches can also change.

Carrie discusses optimal foot function and how the combination of passive and dynamic mechanisms, including the 4 layers of muscles, allow for the appropriate amount of acceleration and deceleration with walking, activity and exercise.

Carrie talks us through some practical exercises for focusing on the intrinsic muscles of the feet and outlines a number of further resources for diving further into the mechanisms of the feet.

The extra resources mentioned by Carrie in the podcast:

Gait Happens

Peter Attia and Courtney Conley # 296. Foot health: preventing and treating common injuries, enhancing strength and mobility, picking footwear, and more.

Sustainable Living with Galahad Clark / Feel Better, Live More Podcast

The foot core system: a new paradigm for understanding intrinsic foot muscle function

Running Shoes Information and Resources from the AAPSM

Kinetic revolution - What is the windlass mechanism of the foot?

You can connect with Carrie Hall via Linked In

For further information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

Kara Allen, founder of The Fitness Nest in Mandurah, Western Australia, is a mum of 2 boys and a personal trainer who specialises in Pregnancy and Postpartum exercise. Her goal is to help take the confusion and fear out of exercising during pregnancy and postpartum.

Kara shares parts of her own journey, when she was pregnant with her first baby and found the information she was given about pregnancy and exercise confusing and conflicting. She has since done extensive training in this area, and has a range of services from one on one to group programs, to cater for the needs of the pregnant and postnatal mums that she sees in person.

She talks about the different seasons in this journey, and how, because sometimes getting out of the house with a new baby is not easy, her app aims to meet the needs of mums where they are at, providing a range of programs and information so that they can enjoy the benefits of exercise.

Kara's app also includes workshops for both pregnant and postnatal mums called "What I wish I knew" to provide more clarity and information on pregnancy and postnatal fitness options.

For more information visit Kara's website at: www.thefitnessnest.com.au

With over 20 years as a global midwife Philippa Cox shares her insights on "Letting it Go" and some of the ways she helps pregnant women to do this, to prepare for labour and motherhood.

Philippa shares practical ways to work on this during your day, beginning with developing even a 5 minute habit in your commitment to continue with ways that work for you. There are many layers to letting go, as you prepare for labour, birth and motherhood, some physical, some emotional. Philippa (Pippa) explores some of these, such as breathing out what is not serving us. Philippa is the author of a new book called Birth Without Borders, and also has a free Ebook and Journal which is available for download on her website www.philippacoxpregnancycoach.com

The Philippa Squared podcast is available on Spotify and via her website link.

For more information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

In this podcast we revisit talking about Breathing as a Desert Island Exercise with Carrie Hall, previously a guest in episodes 48 and 50.

Carrie highlights the benefits of breathing as an exercise on multiple areas of the body, and runs through some practical ways to firstly become aware of your own breathing pattern, which she gives individual cues to with her clients. She talks through one way to focus on developing your breathing awareness, including the movement of your ribcage, your breathing diaphragm and your pelvic diaphragm (pelvic floor).

You can listen to the first of the previous episodes of the podcast Here.

About Carrie:

Carrie Hall, PT, MHS has been a physical therapist for over 40 years, graduating from St. Louis University in Missouri in 1983. Over the 4 decades as a PT, she has worn the hats of practitioner, educator, author, business owner, and advocate; and has served in numerous state and national leadership roles. Her clinical practice expertise lies in the diagnosis and treatment of movement impairment with a focus on movement pattern recognition of the shoulder, spine, hip, knee, ankle, and foot regions as taught by Shirley Sahrmann, PT, PhD, FAPTA and the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, where she went to graduate school. She also incorporates pain science, manual therapy, motor control training, strength and aerobic fitness prescription, and the role of PT in promoting healthspan over lifespan.

Carrie founded her practice, Movement Systems Physical Therapy in 1995 and sold it in 2021. In her "retirement" Carrie formed a new company, "SISU Physical Therapy and Mentoring Services" so she could continue a small clinical practice, teaching, and small business owner mentoring. She is a fierce advocate of the profession and spends much of her time in leadership and advocacy roles, currently running for Secretary of APTA Private Practice.

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.

For further information visit www.thepregnancycentre.com.au

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