Mums need a year to fully recover (both physically and mentally) after giving birth

Growing your child is a wonderful and beautiful experience, but you may find after giving birth your body isn’t the same as it was. And that’s to be expected!

However, sadly, many mums say they feel the pressure to ‘bounce back’, with many health care professionals advising them they’ll be back to ‘normal’ within six weeks of giving birth.

A new study has found that it actually takes a lot longer for women to recover, physically and mentally, after such a huge event.

Mums need a full year to fully recover after birth

Salford University researcher Dr Julie Wray interviewed women at different stages after giving birth and she says the six-week benchmark is a “complete fantasy”.

In Australia, new mums and their babies are provided with antenatal and postnatal care for up to six weeks after birth.

But Dr Wray says she believes in some cases it can take a full year for women to feel back to normal and these women could do with having some extra support and guidance.

The U.K.-based scientist also found that hospital wards don’t always allow for women to fully recoup and recover, as many are discharged as early as six hours after giving birth.

In the past, women were discharged from the hospital when they were ready and shown tasks such as how to bath their child.

“The research shows that more realistic and woman-friendly postnatal services are needed,” Dr Wray concluded.

“Women feel that it takes much longer than six weeks to recover and they should be supported beyond the current six to eight weeks after birth.”

When it comes to losing baby weight, certainly a common goal (so our research tells us) is that women want to lose their weight to regain their body confidence, to feel healthy, to have the energy for their children and to get back into their pre-pregnancy clothes and pre-pregnancy weight.

For some women, this means getting back to a size 8 and for others, it means getting back to a size 16.

The end goal is always a personal one and we believe the focus should be on health and on your own happiness not on external factors or pressures – such as celebrities in the media who live a very different life to normal mums.

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