Empowered Fitness for Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Pelvic Floor Health with Julia Neto, Prenatal and Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist

As part of our Expert Spotlight Series, our founder Lauren chatted with Julia Neto, Prenatal and Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist. Julia has been a prenatal personal trainer in NYC specializing in pregnancy and postpartum recovery for over 8 years, and has helped countless women have healthier pregnancies, easier recoveries, and treat conditions like diastasis recti, pelvic floor dysfunction, and pelvic prolapse.​

In this interview, Julia shares practical tips for navigating fitness during pregnancy and postpartum. She addresses common fears about exercise, emphasizing that movement is safe and beneficial for mom and baby. She explains the importance of pelvic floor health, offering strategies to relax and engage it during workouts, as well as how to manage diastasis recti postpartum. She also highlights the role of nutrition in pregnancy. Whether you're recovering postpartum or just looking for safe fitness guidance, don't miss this chat for expert advice for every stage of motherhood.

Check out 5 of our highlights below, or catch the full conversation on YouTube!

 

 

1. Overcoming Fear and Finding Confidence During Pregnancy and Postpartum Exercise

Lauren:

Based on the folks that you've worked with so far, what are some of the common concerns that women have when they're navigating fitness and exercise during pregnancy and postpartum?

Julia:

I think the biggest overarching theme I see when people are thinking about fitness during pregnancy and postpartum is a lot of fear around what could go wrong and whether or not what they're doing is potentially harmful or if it's going to cause injury. And then one of the hardest challenges is that that fear can be really paralyzing for people and it kind of just leads people to just not move at all, which ironically I feel is actually more harmful than exercising.

So I think one of the biggest hurdles or barriers and concerns people need to work with and get through is just the fear of movement and the fear that you could be doing something wrong. 

Honestly, exercise is studied and proven to be so beneficial for pregnancy. It reduces your risk of prenatal hypertension and gestational diabetes. It can improve your labor experience, your recovery. It can reduce your pains, it can reduce a lot of the things that people are nervous about happening to them. Things like diastasis recti, which is that abdominal separation or pelvic prolapse, which you speak to in your community. All these things can be partially prevented in some cases by exercise. So the more exercise, the better if you're trying to avoid those things.

So yeah, I think a lot of people are worried about injury, but funny enough exercise can really help prevent some of those common postpartum issues.

Lauren:

Yeah, I love that point too. And that's where I think it's also really helpful to have programs like yours that focus on that community specifically because then you can do your workouts in confidence and know that with experts like yourself, you can just follow this tailored guidance instead of having to wonder, especially if you're more anxious about it, "Oh, am I adapting this appropriately?" Or those kinds of things because you already have a lot on your mind, so it's nice and you can just have it already coming from someone that knows, yes, this works and is safe and is helpful during that phase of life too.

Julia:

Yeah, a lot of my job, I always say, is just comforting people and calming their fears and assuring them like, "This is safe, this is good." And people just need to hear that sometimes because of course pregnancy is such a delicate time and it matters a lot. So the stakes feel high, but just hearing someone say, "No, this is definitely safe. You are okay," is a nice license to continue. So I try to do that.

2. “Relaxing the Pelvic Floor is a Skill.”

Lauren:

I know another thing about you is that you have a really strong network of pelvic floor physical therapists in your community. Can you talk a little bit about the relationship between fitness and some of the things you work on in pelvic floor health?

Julia:

Yeah, for sure. I think when it comes to the pelvic floor, there's a lot of buzz about it, and a lot of people will say, "okay, if I'm pregnant, I should be thinking about my pelvic floor," but they don't necessarily know why or they don't know what they need to know about it or how to get to the point where they are educated about it. And I think a lot of people think that the pelvic floor helps push the baby out, and that's why it needs to be strong, which is actually untrue. The pelvic floor really needs to be able to relax during birth, which is a skill. Relaxing the pelvic floor is a skill.

So all this to say, it's so, so helpful to have an understanding of the pelvic floor during pregnancy, not because of what happens during birth, but because it also is really involved in the health of your pregnancy and your whole body.

The pelvic floor is part of your deep core. So in addition to doing things like controlling your bathroom function and your sexual function, it also helps stabilize your whole body and helps you balance, it helps you with control, it helps you with strength, and producing force. So really, your pelvic floor is super involved in everything you do in fitness. We just don't think about it that much when we're not pregnant. But during pregnancy, when there's, like I always say, a 20 pound bowling ball sitting on your pelvic floor for nine months, obviously it's going under some strain at that point. It's starting to stretch, it's being demanded more of. And so then we need to really start to focus on how to train it so that it can keep up with the demand of balancing you, stabilizing you, especially when your body's changing so much. And there's more to stabilize, if you will.

Lauren:

Right.

Julia:

Gosh, it's got a huge job. Yeah, your center of gravity changes. It's like all the things. So the pelvic floor is an overstressed girly during pregnancy. So the more we can do to support it, the better.

 

 

3. Managing Diastasis Recti: How to Safely Return to Fitness Postpartum

Lauren:

Another thing I wanted to ask you about is, I know that many people can be hesitant to exercise after childbirth if they do have diastasis recti. How do you approach clients who are struggling with this but wanting to get movement in and get back to fitness?

Julia:

For sure. So diastasis recti, if you don't know, is just an abdominal separation. So it's a separation of the rectus abdominis muscle along the connective tissue in the center, which is called the linea alba. And it kind of creates that image of there being a hole in the center or softness or bulging in the center. And so it's funny, because “diastasis" as well as “pelvic floor" have become big buzzwords. People tend to be nervous about diastasis and think about it a lot. 

I like to tell people it is something we want to address. It's something we want to heal when we can, but it's not the end of the world. You don't have to think of it like this big terrifying thing that is going to prevent you from moving. When you have diastasis, it's actually really helpful to get back to exercise and get back to strength training as soon as you feel ready. It just really matters how you do it. Even more so when you have diastasis, because there are certain exercises that will be less beneficial and potentially harmful if you have diastasis.

So I always just say, start really slow. The most important thing to focus on is your breath work and your deep core, which is all connected. The best way to train your core is breathing, which sounds oversimplified, but it's really true. It's important to not be in a rush and allow yourself to really go one step at a time.

And then I do think when it comes to diastasis, it's really helpful to work with a professional who knows about it, whether it a trainer like me who's experienced in it, or even going to a pelvic floor PT and getting some guidance one-on-one because everybody's situation's going to be a little bit different. So it's really nice to get some feedback on where you are specifically in a plan you can follow.

But my best advice would be don't let diastasis hinder you from getting back to movement. There's still a lot you can do. It might just take a little bit more research on your part to make sure you're doing the right things.

Lauren:

Yeah, I think that's a great one. And I think it reminds me too of what you're talking about a little bit earlier, which is this hesitancy potentially to work out during pregnancy and postpartum. I think we see that with anything that you encounter where your body is feeling different, whether it's diastasis or pelvic work and prolapse.

And then there's definitely that saying--and I don't know how you feel about the statement-- that movement is medicine. And it's doing it in the right ways where it doesn't make things worse.

And I think another thing I have come across, too, is that folks who are very fitness-oriented ahead of encountering some of these things can also really struggle because where they were before compared to where they are now or where they want to be looks so different. Their training looks different, making progress looks different, or hitting your PRs and stuff is very different. And so it's that mindset reset. It can be challenging too when you're going through different things like this.

Julia:

That is such a good point. And the mindset thing is something I work with people on a lot, because I always say, you have your whole life to get back to your fitness goals and reach all the goals you want to do, but you only have this small window to care for what your body needs right now and to recover from your pregnancy and everything. So it's kind of a change in goals. What's really more important to you on a deeper level? Is it maintaining your fitness level that you had before pregnancy, or is it making sure you're caring for your body and your baby as you go through this process, which is just the brief time?

But it's hard. And it makes me think you spend your whole life achieving fitness goals just for you, and you're the only person affected by it, and now there's other people in the picture and it's like, what's best for my baby and my family? And you might just have to adjust those goals. And that involves being a little more gentle with yourself too, and giving yourself a little leeway to not be at the top of your game the entire pregnancy.

Lauren:

Right. When you were talking about fitness goals and how they change over life, it reminded me of something. I recently watched this webinar with Bobbi Brown (the Bobbi Brown makeup artist and now has Jones Road Beauty). She was just talking about her journey, but it was interesting because at the end, they wrapped it up saying, "Okay, Bobbi, what's the one thing you regret about your journey?" And the whole topic of this was business-based and everything. And she's like, "I'm not a person who lives in regret. I am always just kind of 'learn and move forward.'" But she goes, "The one thing was that I did way too much cardio and not enough strength training. Now I'm all about the weights."

I thought it was interesting too, because you also see how over time our idea of fitness changes. Whereas I think for her--I think she's in her early sixties now--it was like cardio was kind of the thing when she was younger. And now we're seeing the importance of strength training and I think it ties so much, especially to the pregnant and postpartum community.

Julia:

Yeah, it's so funny. Again, it's kind of tied into the idea of doing what people are expecting you to do or what you're told you should be doing, versus what your body actually needs at the time. We've definitely been a little bit bamboozled when it comes to fitness for women over the past century.

 

 

4. ​​Nutrition for Pregnancy and Postpartum: Focus on What to Add, Not Just What to Avoid

Lauren:

What role and how should we think about nutrition as we're thinking about fitness during pregnancy and postpartum?

Julia:

There's an overlap in the way people think about fitness and nutrition during pregnancy, which is it's lot of focus on what not to do. And I don't find that thinking super helpful. Again, so many people are like, "Well, I can't jump and I can't lay on my back and I can't do planks and I can't do crunches." But what have you added in? What are you doing to support your pregnancy?

So the same is true with nutrition. I think there's so much focus on all the things that could potentially be harmful and that people cut out of their diet, but not as much research or attention going into what you could be adding in. So that's my approach to nutrition. I'm not a nutrition expert by any means, but obviously it does tie in with fitness.

And I think the best thing you can do is focus on what specific nutrients and macronutrients your body needs during pregnancy to thrive and make sure you're getting as many nutrient-dense meals as possible. And I tend to really like focusing on protein and adding in protein because it's pretty hard to eat unhealthily if you are focusing on increasing your protein. It solves a lot of problems on its own. And it just helps with energy, satiation, all of that. So that's one of the only pieces of nutrition advice that I like to give.

Also, hydration is huge, and I'm really big on hydration. It's so good. But it does tie in with fitness too, because it helps with the tissue pliability and everything during pregnancy when we're going to be stretching a lot, so the more hydrated you are, the better.

But yeah, I like to keep it really simple when it comes to nutrition. Focus on adding in the things that you need to support you, making sure you're getting the protein, you're hydrated, you're getting sleep. Stuff like that is more important than obsessing over cutting out sushi and coffee and stuff like that, in my opinion.

Lauren:

I think that's a great point. Over the last six to nine months, I've been learning a lot about protein in terms of macros and how it supports your body. It's been really eye-opening, and I totally agree that if you were focusing on hitting those protein goals and kind of staying within a certain macro count, there's not a lot of room for anything else. And you have to be very mindful of it. To hit the right amount of protein, I've had to really focus on planning it out. Like, "This is my goal, and how am I going to get there?" Because my kind of diet before didn't support that.

Julia:

Yeah, that's one of the biggest things that I do recommend doing some research on, even if you're not currently pregnant. In general, the RDA (recommended daily amount) for protein is considered to be really low, so it's recommended to go above the RDA, and then at that point, most people should be eating closer to a hundred grams of protein a day, which is not that easy to reach. I always reference that an egg is six grams and we're trying to get to a hundred.

Lauren:

You think, oh, eggs are high in protein. But they're not that high.

Julia:

Exactly. Yeah, they're not actually, but they're great for you. But yeah, so I think keeping it simple and thinking about what things are going to support you more during the pregnancy and what to add in, and then taking things out kind of solves itself at that point.

Lauren:

Yeah, I like the adding in approach too. I do think, especially during pregnancy and postpartum, and especially if you have things that you're trying to work on, there is such a restrictive, "Don't do this, don't do that, don't do that" message all around us. And so you kind of get left feeling like, "Okay, I don't even understand what my choices are now," and then it can feel hard to know how to move forward with this. So I like that approach that you take. I think that that could be a lot more impactful and effective for folks.

 

 

5. The #1 Way To Make Sure Your Pelvic Floor “Comes To The Party” When Exercising Postpartum

Lauren:

Can you share with us some simple lifestyle habits that women can adopt to help improve pelvic floor health through their fitness?

Julia:

Yeah. With this, I just want to say it's all coming back to the same thing, which is the breathwork. Breathing during exercise is the number one way to make sure your pelvic floor has, as I like to say, come to the party. We don't want to be exercising without the pelvic floor, so the more we're breathing throughout our workouts, the more we can ensure the pelvic floor is with us and helping us.

Ideally, when we breathe, every time we inhale, the pelvic floor relaxes and expands, and every time we exhale, it slightly lifts and contracts. And so we want that contraction to be there when we're challenging our core. So when we're in a workout, if we are pushing or pulling or balancing or planking or doing anything that we need to recruit our core strength and use our balance and control, we want that pelvic floor to be reacting, which means we need to be exhaling.

So a quick rule of thumb, if you're just trying to get your pelvic floor to help you in your workouts at all, is to exhale on the effort. You always want to be breathing with every movement and using your exhale on the harder part of the exercise so that when you need that pelvic floor for stability, it's working with you.

Lauren:

I love that one too, because especially if you can learn it during pregnancy, and if it's your first kid, it carries you through because then you're picking up the toddler, you're carrying all the stuff when you're taking them in and out from school. But learning that early on is great, because it translates far beyond being in the weight room or your home gym.

Julia:

I say that all the time. So true. Exhale on the effort applies to everything. Yes, it applies to unloading the car, picking up the stroller, all of those things. 100%.

 

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**Medical Disclaimer: This post is intended to provide information and resources only. This post or any of the information contained within should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis, treatment, or advice. Always seek the guidance of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your healthcare, conditions, and recommended treatment.