I gave birth to my first son back in 2004 and apart from the occasional yoga video did very little in terms of exercise during my pregnancy, the result was that I experienced a lot of back and pelvic pain during my third trimester and was left with a very tight sore back after giving birth. My movements were restricted and I could not lie on my back properly for about three months without feeling like I'd been kicked by a horse. I started doing Pilates to try and realign my posture and alleviate the tenderness I was feeling but my back continued to be a problem and I also developed a tightness in my lateral rotators.
It was because of this and the desire to take a new direction in my life that I trained as a Pilates instructor and this enabled me to correct my posture, build up my core strength and avoid any further problems with my back.
I taught throughout my second pregnancy in 2007, stopping at thirty four weeks, and felt physically so much better than I had before. I had an extremely large bump (I measured six weeks larger than I should) but never felt uncomfortable in my back as my abdominal muscles were strong enough to support my expanding waistline. I began my pelvic floor exercises straight after giving birth and slowly began to introduce some postnatal exercises in the following weeks. I was amazed at how quickly my muscles remembered what they should be doing and was back teaching part time when my baby was four months old.