Today, a top pre- and post-natal fitness guru took to Mother & Baby Magazine’s Facebook page to answer your questions about fitness, pregnancy and getting back in shape on behalf of Kegel8Mum, answering questions on everything from why we need to exercise our pelvic floor to questions about getting back a flat tummy after an unplanned C-section.

Your Questions Answered

As part of today’s Mother & Baby Wednesday Lunch Club, our pre- and post-natal fitness guru answered your questions on all subjects mum-related – it was fascinating to see the huge range of concerns out there, whether pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, or post-birth.

Some of today’s top questions were…

"I had my baby 10 months ago. He was high forceps and suction delivery. My episiotomy got infected and I have just started back to exercise. Struggling with pelvic floor exercises. Any advice?"

This lady was advised to visualise her pelvic floor muscles as she exercised; “the pelvic floor is diamond shaped and at the base of your pelvis, running from your pubic bone to your tail bone then from one sitting bone to the other - think of these points as North, South, East and West”.  Pulling these points together is a great way to master your 'squeeze' and then pull up inside (lift) to perform effective pelvic floor exercises.

Finding the correct muscles can be the most difficult part of manual pelvic floor exercises, especially after childbrith when everything is pretty numb! Then comes the doubt that your doing them right at all which more often than not results in you not even bothering at all. If this sounds familiar to you, you should try exercising with a Kegel8 Mother Nurture Electronic Pelvic Toner. This NMES device locates the right muscles and then exercises them for you using muscle stimulation, performing the ‘squeeze and lift’ exercises that are sometimes so difficult to do yourself if you have muscle or nerve damage.

"The idea of mypelvic floor area makes me shudder! Sorry for my ignorance but can you please explain why I need to 'exercise' it and what I need to do?..."

It's not just those who are trying for a baby, pregnant, or a new mum who need to exercise their pelvic floor - we all do! Our expert said: “think of your pelvic floor as the base of your pelvis – like the bottom of a bucket – if it wasn’t there, everything, and I mean everything, would fall through!”.  At Kegel8, we speak to ladies every day who suffer from pelvic organ prolapse, meaning that their organs literally have ‘fallen’, or descended down into their vagina or rectum as a result of weakened pelvic floor muscles.

" Whilst chasing after my 15 month old whilst 8 months pregnant is tiring, is it secretly doing me good and keeping me active? Also, I know heavy lifting is suggested against, however try telling my 15 months old who wants picking up!"

Being a mum can be a difficult job and doesn’t leave you very much time for yourself! Looking after yourself in pregnancy and beyond is imperative and as our expert told this lady: “keeping active IS really really good for you, but make sure you are getting adequate rest”. For busy mums who spend all of their time looking after their little one, it’s difficult to take time to look after yourself, but that’s where Kegel8 Mother Nurture can help. If you can relate to this lady's situation why not get your Kegel8 Mother Nurture in the bag now; electronic pelvic toners (or NMES) cannot be used during pregnancy but Mother Nurture is so much more - it's a Labour TENS Machine too for drug-free pain relief when baby number 2 arrives. Once your body has settled from childbirth, Kegel8 Mother Nurture offers some great recovery programmes to get your pelvic floor back in great shape in just minutes a day – while you’re busy looking after your baby, let Kegel8 Mother Nurture look after you.