PARENTHOOD
At the time of creating this page I'm still fairly new to the parenthood - My son was born at the end of 2022 and what a crazy 18 months its been.
I felt this topic needed its own page, for lots of different reasons, but mostly because of my own personal journey through postpartum and the new chapter of parenthood.
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So where do I start and how does this relate to sports massage...I always like to give the back story so scroll down to cut out the fluff!
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PREGNANCY & SPORTS MASSAGE
I was lucky to have a fairly straightforward pregnancy and was able to work and workout throughout. I'm an advocate of hypnobirthing and very much treated pregnancy like training for a marathon. This was my first pregnancy so perhaps a little easier (from a time and energy point of view) to plough my efforts into learning about my changing body and tuning in to what it needed.
Alongside some pretty constant acid reflux (the burn!!) I also suffered with awful rib pain.
My go to sports massage therapist did a lovely job of taping me up and releasing off my back
muscles to help. I continued to have sports massage throughout trimester 2 which helped
keep my body relaxed and mobile. I continued to work myself, up to 36 weeks, so I needed all
the support I could get!
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Sports massage is safe during pregnancy but It's recommended you wait until trimester 2.
The treatment is fully adapted to you and your bump so you can get the most from the
massage in a comfortable way.
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POSTPARTUM & SPORTS MASSAGE
One of the reasons for writing this page is that I was so not prepared for how wrecked my body was going to feel postpartum. I would consider myself pretty fit and healthy and given I exercised throughout pregnancy and have a physical job, I was shocked at how achy and stiff my muscles felt. I will caveat...we were not blessed with a child that sleeps...so I have no doubt that chronic sleep deprivation played a part in this! Nevertheless, I don't think there are many parents that come out unscathed from the wrecked body feeling for the first few years, or maybe longer, i'm yet to know!
Like many, i'm sure, I could write a whole book on my experience of parenthood so far and in that book i'd have a nice big chapter on 'SELF CARE'. I know it's a current buzzword but if the last 18 months has taught me anything it's to look after my physical and mental health. For a long time sports massage has been part of my self care but now, more than ever, I pretty much rely on it to help support me in my everyday. My body feels somewhat recovered but as we have entered the toddler phase, the demands on my body are still constant - carry demands, awkward down the stairs walking, sitting on little chairs, tent playing, row the boat stomach sitting, hop little bunny and lets not forget awkward SOFTPLAY crawling! You need a sports massage just thinking about it...
If like me, your body is feeling the need for a reset, some TLC or a good iron out then please get in touch and I promise to not talk kids the whole time!