After you give birth, your body sends a very clear message: it has been through something significant. The pressure to "bounce back" is real and relentless — social media, well-meaning comments, the general cultural obsession with postpartum bodies. This guide is not about that. It's about rebuilding function, not appearance, and doing it without injuring yourself in the process.
What actually happened to your core
During pregnancy, your abdominal muscles stretched to accommodate a growing baby. The rectus abdominis — the "six-pack" muscles — separated at the midline in a process called diastasis recti. This is not a malfunction. It's a necessary and normal adaptation. Most women have some degree of separation after birth.
Your pelvic floor — a hammock of muscles at the base of your pelvis — was under months of increasing pressure and then, for vaginal births, went through the physical strain of delivery. For cesarean births, the abdominal wall was cut through (though the pelvic floor still experienced months of pregnancy pressure).
The result is a core that is stretched, weakened, and potentially disconnected — meaning your brain-to-core communication (proprioception) has been disrupted. The goal of postpartum core recovery is to reconnect and rebuild, progressively.
Weeks 0–6: rest and reconnection
This period is not for exercise. It's for healing. Whether you had a vaginal birth or a c-section, your body needs this time. Pushing too soon is one of the most common causes of long-term pelvic floor dysfunction and worsening diastasis recti.
What you can do in this period:
- Diaphragmatic breathing. Simply breathing deeply — expanding your ribs 360 degrees on inhale, releasing fully on exhale — begins the process of reconnecting your deep core system. Do this lying down, multiple times a day.
- Gentle pelvic floor awareness. Not Kegels yet — just noticing whether you can feel your pelvic floor. For some women, postpartum, there is numbness or disconnection that needs time to resolve.
- Short walks. Gradually increasing from around week 2-3, guided by how you feel. Not for fitness — for circulation and gentle load.
Stop anything that causes pain, increased bleeding, pressure in the pelvic floor, or general worsening of symptoms.
Weeks 6–12: gentle loading begins
After your 6-week check (and ideally after seeing a pelvic floor physiotherapist, if that's accessible to you), you can begin gentle loading. The goal here is not intensity — it's relearning how to use your core in coordination with your breath.
- Pelvic floor exercises — both strengthening (squeezing) and lengthening (releasing)
- Glute bridges — start with body weight, focus on breath coordination
- Modified bird dog — quadruped position, opposite arm and leg, slow and controlled
- Side-lying exercises — hip abduction, clamshells
- Heel slides — lying on your back, sliding one heel out while maintaining core connection
Signs you're doing too much too soon: leaking when you exercise, pelvic pressure, pain, doming at your midline, or general exhaustion that persists. Back off if any of these occur.
Months 3–6: progressive loading
By months 3-6, most women are ready for progressively more challenging work. This is when the connective tissue between the rectus abdominis is healing enough to handle more load — though the timeline varies significantly based on the severity of diastasis, birth type, and individual healing.
A core workout at this stage might include full glute bridges, body-weight squats, dead bugs, and planks — progressing from knees to toes as strength returns. You're not doing crunches yet. The goal is still function and connection, not aesthetics.
The thing about guilt
Postpartum recovery is slow in a culture that celebrates fast. The pressure to "get your body back" is absurd — your body grew and birthed a person, and it needs time to rebuild. Going too fast increases your risk of long-term injury. Going at the right pace is not weakness. It's the only approach that actually works.
Core Amore's postpartum mode is built around this reality. Workouts are calibrated to your weeks postpartum, not to a generic "postnatal" category. The app adjusts as you progress — so the right workout is always waiting, and you never have to figure out if today's session is appropriate for where you are.