When we become pregnant it’s almost like we’re unstoppable – we focus on eating well and healthy, we care about how clean the environment we’re in is, take vitamins, we start buying clothes and toys and various accessories for the baby – to be ready for the new arrival… Then we go on and start planning the birth, choose the provider and so on. We care about prenatal care so much that we can’t see behind the horizon of birth. So much emphasis is put on the best outcome of our pregnancy – we all want a healthy baby, of course! We’ll do anything for our kids, no matter how big or small, easy or difficult, or expensive it is. There’s always a big budget for the baby coming, especially if it’s our first.
It’s all about the baby. And it never stops being about the baby.
We want to have a perfect plan for everything – our pregnancy, the baby shower, the labor and delivery itself. We see prenatal care as a huge and important investment in our family’s future. Which it is, clearly. We don’t mind allocating an extensive budget for all these things that we think we ‘need’ for the baby during the time we’re expecting or during the birth of the baby, and what we consider that ‘our baby needs’. We know we need the money for all these important things, we may complain about all the costs involved, but we are happy to pay ‘the price’.
It’s not about the money, it’s about our baby after all!
But where does it leave us, moms? We use our bodies to bring our children to the world, our bodies serve us well to take care of our precious little ones after they’re born – when feeding, getting up during the nights, holding them, comforting them, bathing them… But how much we really care for our own bodies that are serving us so much and assisting us all the way to take care of our families? Do we consider our bodies at all? Do we allow them to have a rest? Relax… have time to heal? They go through so many changes on our motherhood journey. Some changes are more expected than others, some can take us completely by surprise. Some of us can cope with pregnancy and labor better, some of us can be more affected by it in a more unpleasant way.
I talk more about these changes and postpartum implications that might not necessarily fix themselves in my latest video here:
Did you know about all these changes? Does your partner know? What is your plan to take care of yourself after you’ve had the baby?
Planning the budget and your Postpartum Recovery…
Our bodies serve us so well, they surely need some TLC. If you’re a first-time mom you probably can’t quite imagine what it’s going to be like, but you know that you’ll be ‘busy’ with the baby: feeding her, changing her, cuddling her, putting her to sleep… and probably trying to juggle a few more things on the top of it: your partner’s needs, your house, making dinners… To be able to take care of your newborn and tackle all these things too, it’s always better to be strong. You may have heard before: ‘Happy mom = happy baby’, but this should go both ways. What about if this equation is not right? What about if the correct one goes like that:
STRONG and HEALTHY MOM = Happy mom + happy baby
If we feel strong it’s always much easier for us to deal with all the daily tasks that our life throws at us. So, please don’t consider your postpartum care a luxury but think of it as of a reward or thank you your body deserves for being there for you and your family and serving you so well. Give it all the postpartum TLC it deserves, don’t neglect it.
If you until today haven’t thought about your postpartum recovery, I hope I’ve changed your mind a little bit. Now it’s time to make sure your partner understands too that it’s not just ‘all about the baby’, but that having a strong healthy mom really matters and that’s why your postpartum care should be part of your birth budget too.
If you’re planning your Birth Budget and you want to include your postpartum recovery in it, you can start here by downloading my free Ultimate Postpartum Guide and also my Postpartum Checklist for Brand New Moms.
If you’ve already had your baby (no matter how long ago) and are suffering from some of the health issues I indicated in my video above, you don’t have to. Get in touch and I will be very happy to see you at my clinic.
