Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Shakira Akabusi on Safe and Effective Postpartum Exercise

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

Pre and postnatal health expert, fitness expert, track athlete and founder of StrongLikeMum Shakira Akabusi joins Ashley to talk about the changes the body goes through pre and post natally, finding time for herself and how best to approach exercise after birth. Her book 'The Strong Like Mum Method' is available in paperback in all good bookshops. If you want to ask Ashley a question, get in touch at [e-mail]---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. I am having a really productive couple of weeks on getting to the root of what happened in my childbirth and also my postnatal recovery. So proud moment, I've actually just filled out something that's called a subject access request form, which is basically the form that you have to fill out from the hospital to get your birth notes. So that's really exciting. And I went back to see my pelvic health physio Marta last Friday and I finally got answers about why I still have pain in my postnatal well are you still posting it I guess you're always postnatal so 18 months on from giving birth I'm finally finally getting

answers just to really encourage any of you to request your notes from the hospital, to request a debrief. I've got mine booked in for a couple of weeks. And if you can go see a pelvic health physio, I'm actually going to ask Marta if she can come on the podcast. But today I have a guest that I'm really excited to speak to because, I mean, she pretty much dedicates her career to helping pre and postnatal mothers. She is a pre and postnatal mothers she is a pre and postnatal health expert a fitness expert she's a runner she's also a mum of four so she's got so much personal experience as well as professional she has published a book called strong like mum method which basically is in collaboration with some leading nutritionists and therapists

and it encourages women to reconnect with their confidence, creativity and passions postpartum through activity, nutrition, sleep. What is that? Mindfulness and hydration. So I'd like to welcome Shakira Akabusi to the show. Hello! How are you? I'm so excited to talk to you. Yeah I'm good thank you. I'm good and actually it's probably the first morning I can say that in a while because we've had a lot a lot of bugs and sickness bugs and stuff running through our whole family and like with four children someone's always ill and then it sort of passes through to everyone else so there's been there's been a couple of weeks that have been pretty exhausting. Actually, my eldest is still not well today.

But I actually slept last night, so I'm feeling better today. How are you? I'm actually really good. I was worried that Alf might be ill because I actually did his chickenpox vaccination on Friday. But he seems to have not had any side effects so fingers crossed that continues so I also feel good and I feel like I'm making progress with my kind of postnatal experience which is also why I'm so excited to speak to you obviously as a mum of four and I believe that you've had experiences of childbirth both vaginal and c- what, I mean, we don't have to talk about all

of your births because there's so much more that I want to talk about, but out of curiosity, did you have any sort of trauma or was it difficult for you to recover from any of them? And if so, how did you go into the next one with a fresh, open mind? Yeah. Do you know what? Interestingly, so I said without delving into too much detail about all of the births, my first birth, which was a vaginal delivery, was anything short of just picture perfect. You know, it was literally it was it was smooth sailing. It all happened slowly. And I felt calm. Everything was explained to me, talked through. everything was explained to me, talked through. And then actually, because that was such a really fantastic birth experience, which is great, you then get registered as sort of being a low risk pregnancy. And I've always suffered with anxiety pre and postnatally. And I know that's meant to be a good thing. But for me, that really put my anxiety up. So actually, my second pregnancy,

I was really anxious for a lot of it because I was like, what if they miss something because I'm no priority? And I think I made that a bit more difficult myself because I was worrying about all sorts of things. But again, it was a relatively straightforward. I think it was different. I experienced different things. But when I then had my twins, I knew quite early on that it might be, a cesarean might be something I would need to consider because the way that they were lying. And then I, having worked with cesarean mothers for so many years, I thought, okay, you know, I know the physical, I know from the textbook, everything I've learned and having worked with women, I know what to expect. And the actual cesarean delivery itself, again, incredibly blessed. It was

a very calm process and the actual surgery itself was really good. But the postnatal experience came as such a shock to the system, things I just had not anticipated till I actually had lived it. And I think like many women, for me, I didn't register, really acknowledge the trauma for quite some time after. And it's actually only in the last couple of months, and I'm almost two years postpartum from that pregnancy, only in the last few months that I've really acknowledged the emotional and the physical trauma that I experienced during that process. And it's been a real journey that I've gone through to get through the other side of, you know, accepting that and working through that.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because I guess similar to you, it took me a good amount of months, if not a year to really start to like, think about my birth and think about, I guess like at the time, I didn't think I was just so happy to have made it through childbirth and to have a healthy baby. And then I guess I was in that sort of newborn bubble and so much adrenaline and oxytocin and all of those things that I suppose it was only when the lots of mums and dads on here and then think, hang on a minute, wow, I do have quite a lot to process. What I find really interesting, so for me, I've always loved exercise. I mean, I enjoy it physically, but for me, it's the mental benefits that I get. So I went into pregnancy, actually quite excited to see how my body would change. But for me, the big turning point was when I got diagnosed with pelvic girdle pain. So then I

couldn't exercise anymore. And I found that mentally quite challenging. And especially when I was kind of holding out for this magical six week moment, and then it never came. And actually I got diagnosed with prolapse about eight weeks postpartum. But I am really aware that for lots of women, they really worry pregnancy from a physical aspect as well. Like my friend who's currently nine months pregnant is constantly saying, oh, I'm so fat. I've put on so much weight. And I'm like, you've not put on weight. You're literally growing a baby, like you've grown a percenter. And actually, awfully, I'm going to read you this. Her mom said, hi, what is your weight now? Because you're only

allowed to gain nine kilos so that you go back to normal after giving birth. That happened with me. I got out of hospital wearing my jeans. Everyone was shocked. That's obviously a really extreme example. And I know that my friend won't mind me saying that because obviously it's anonymous. But what is your thoughts on the kind of, the pressures on women, both in pregnancy and postnatally, especially because you kind of work on the more physical,

I know it's like wellbeing, but on the more physical side of it, you must come across people all the time who really feel that sort of pressure what would you say to them and then I suppose the second question is how can you know what is safe to even do in both pregnancy and postnatal? So to answer the first question I think that's again something I'm really passionate about so something that I talk about in the beginning of my book is the words that surround pre and postnatal women and the words that we're using. And interestingly, I feel as though for, I know your friend is pregnant at the moment and during pregnancy, I think you go

through a time where everyone seems to have a real opinion on your body and everyone feels that they can touch your body and they want to talk about, even if they think they're being positive, they want to talk about your boobs or, you know, everyone's interested in what your boobs are doing. And, you know, it's all really, everyone's suddenly really interested in your body and has an opinion on how it should be, how it was for them and how it, you know, what their opinion is. And that is, it is really difficult. And there's a huge movement about trying to make sure that you keep positivity around you from a mental health aspect during your pregnancy. And it can be really hard to

draw boundaries, especially if those people are in your inner circle, like if they are your family. Some people have that even with their partner. So that can be really difficult. For me, I think then when we look at postnatally, that immediate postnatal period, we have arrived in a culture where it seems to be documented by time. So anytime you see something in the media, or you're hearing discussions, it's often with a timeline attached. You know, so it will be like this person got back into their jeans four months after having a baby or, you know, whatever.

And it's always with a timeline attached. This person steps out showcasing their postnatal figure six weeks after giving birth. Exactly, exactly. So there's always a timeline attached and that does put a lot of pressure on two women. And that's something that I'm really passionate about changing. So for me, the words that we are using, in fact, I'll go as far as to say not even pre and postnatal health, female health in general, the words that we are using around that, even to promote a healthy lifestyle, it will always be

something like eight-week abs or summer body ready or all these kind of phrases that we think are really good marketing tools. Blitz your belly in two weeks. Exactly. Exactly. But over a long period of time, that messaging is really damaging because when we start to absorb words, the words begin to become our beliefs and our actions. And then that dictates how we lead our life. And so it's really, to me, my advice there would be about starting with what words are you using yourself and are you allowing into your space from those around you? What are you reading? What are you looking at? The content that you're absorbing, the people that you're listening to on social media, all of that. So making sure that the words that we are allowing ourselves to encounter in that pre- and postnatal process resonate with something positive. And to me, I'm much less interested in getting back into jeans. And I'm much more interested in having energy to sustain through motherhood, being able to move without pain, being able to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I want maintenance,

sustainability with healthy lifestyle. All of that means much more to me, being active. Those types of words resonate with me more than get back into jeans or all of that kind of language. It doesn't do it for me. So I think that's really important. However, saying that, I do understand that these pressures are real and they are happening. I think, like you said, what is important as well that we could all help with and maybe something that I'm hoping that my book will help with is helping women to embrace their bodies during pregnancy, understand how actually how incredible it is. So I start by really talking in detail about pregnancy and sort of, you know, historically how women have continued to birth the future and what an

incredibly powerful thing that is and how, how can that not be empowering that your body is going through all this and yes, creating life, number one. I mean, hands down, that's fantastic. But everything your body goes through, you know, right down to, and this is going to sound boring, but your pelvis, and I'll get onto that, sorry, with the exercises, because that's where I would start is actually looking at realigning the pelvis. And the compromise that your pelvis has to make in order to be wide enough to grow a baby, but stable enough to keep you upright and keep you walking. And as you said, you've experienced pelvic girdle pain, which many women do. And how fascinating it is to learn about what your body needs to do to manage that and to recover from that postpartum.

And it's things like that, that we need to be teaching women because A, it's going to give you an incredible respect for what your body's doing. And I'm hoping that the second thing, the B to that is that it's going to help you be compassionate in your recovery. So we need to strip away those timelines, have utter respect for what the female body has done and what our body has done and be proud of that fact and know that taking time to recover is normal and correct. It is not a four, five months thing. My twins are almost two. I'm an expert in pre and postnatal health. And I am still now working on my pelvic floor and my diastasis recti two years after having my baby. Babies, sorry, sorry to the twin that I left out.

Babies. Because that's actually, that's right. Laying those strong foundations i always say to people like i look at my mom and she is 63 and she's pain-free and she is super active and healthy and the reason she is pain-free which for you know for some reason in this day and age is unusual to be 63 and not have a bad hip or a dodgy knee or a bad back is because she really took time i work with women who are 10 20 years postpartum, and we have to go back to looking at their pelvic alignment and their deep core from when they gave birth. It's crazy. I speak to women who message me about having prolapse

and they maybe gave birth eight years ago. Yeah. This is why also I find it so maddening that the media and society as a whole, but I think perpetuated by the media, this whole narrative on celebrating a woman based on her not looking like she's had a baby. Like it's so dangerous because not everybody has access to the best nutritionist and the best personal trainer. And they're probably getting all of the right advice for what's good to do with their body. But an example, my friend gave birth three weeks ago. She screenshotted some of the adverts that she's being targeted with from Instagram. My loose skin will be gone by bikini season.

And it's a picture of a girl with, I think, cling film wrapped around her tummy. You won't believe these three stretch mark myths. Do you want to fade your dot, dot, dot dot and then reduce belly volume for a sleeker look my loose saggy postpartum tummy skin and how to get rid of it this cream firms the belly and is clinically proven struggling with post baby belly and this is like she's not even gone looking for anything to do with a diet so imagine for people that are feeling pressure but this is what's been targeted at women on the internet three weeks after giving birth it's so infuriating and it's so dangerous and it's so dangerous unfortunately it is everywhere it is everywhere and when people ask me about my book and they're like so like you

know my parents had a baby can I get it for him like you can but listen it's not a quick fix this is not about in two weeks get your summer body back or whatever garbage is out there this isn't about that this is actually about sustainable health because that is what I believe in that is just what I believe in so yeah I really feel for your friend both of them that you've just mentioned I can't wait to read it by the way but does your book have like tips on what to look out for what exercise you can do both during pregnancy and postnatal so it takes you through all the trimesters about movements that are not just again i get asked a lot what movements are safe so for example in pregnancy i get asked a lot can i do ab exercises because i'm told that i can or i can't or whatever and i'm

i'm always saying to him, look, it's not just about what is safe. It's also about what is mostly beneficial. So the current guidelines are telling you that yes, you can do in the first trimester, you could carry on doing all your abdominal crunches or whatever you've been doing before. You can continue your current exercise program throughout that first trimester if you feel like you're able to. But it's not just about, well, can you do sit-ups? It's about how much is that sit-up going to help you? And actually, what can we do that's going to be much more beneficial for your body in that first trimester that's going to help you prepare for delivery and that's going to help us with our postnatal

recovery? Let's do that. So it's that. And then, yeah, it takes you through the immediate postnatal period. And as I said, it's also about that mind body connection which i think is super important i'm really passionate about having a positive connection to exercise i think so often exercise is seen as something that we have to do and actually changing that yeah exactly punishment or just being like even if it's not punishment it's like i have to go for that run because if i don't i'm going to put on loads of weight like you know it's that it's changing our mindset so we actually find something that we enjoy and understanding the benefits and and then leading you leading you through that from week zero or day one after giving birth and and all through that you'd asked me before about what exercises would I recommend

in that sort of immediate postnatal period so always again I often talk about the fact that I would look at the pelvis the posture and then our personal progress and I think when we've touched on that last one but that's where I'd go first is personal progress because you've got to be able to be comfortable in how your delivery was and where you're starting from because you're not the mum in the bed opposite or the room next door you're you you, what was your journey? What was your pregnancy, your delivery? And, and, you know, where are you starting from? So being able to feel comfortable in that. And then I would look at, like I said, the pelvis and the posture and the deep core. So that is where I would begin. I I'm talking about laying strong foundations. I'm not about, okay, right.

We need to get a six pack or we need to go for a run so that we can lose all the baby weight. That will come with time. What I want is to lay strong foundations so that in two, three years time, you're continuing to run your 5Ks, 10Ks, marathons or whatever it is you want to do. And you're actually able to do that and have a strong supportive core, no urinary incontinence. We've worked on strengthening the front of the abdominal wall, the pelvic floor, all of that. So I would look at in those very early days, if you're talking about day one, you've just had a baby. Before even looking at the pelvic floor, I would look at breathing. at breathing because if you think about your core as a fist if you you know people are often like doing pelvic floor strengthening exercises all the time but if you if you don't take a deep inhale

and you're not able to relax your core and relax your pelvic floor to then engage your pelvic floor it's not really got far to go you've not got a lot to work with and you're not going to be able to get much power back through your core so the first thing I would look at is how you're breathing and relaxing your pelvic floor. And then on the exhale, we're going to work on engaging the pelvic floor. And then I would start with pelvic floor engagement exercises and then looking at, so there's a muscle called the transverse abdominus. I'm sure your physio would have talked to you about it, but very, very roughly, if you break down your abdominal layers into four layers, you've got the rectus abdominis at the front. And then under that,

we've got our obliques, which come diagonally across external and internal obliques. And then under that, you've got your transverse abdominis. And it's sort of like, if you imagine an olden day Elizabethan corset, you know, it wraps wraps around you from it connects to a muscle at your back called the mortifidus and all the way around the front and it works like a corset it contracts and it helps to really strengthen it helps to keep your torso stable and so i would look at how that muscle is working with the pelvic floor and you do that with exercises like, so static contraction, so something like a pelvic tilt, something like leg slides. When you're ready, you progress to something like the bridge exercise or a modified plank or the bird dog position where we're in that

box position and we have the opposite arm and leg extended out. All of that is targeting the transverse abdominis and the pelvic floor together. And those are the things we want to be doing, making sure those muscles can work well together. And then thirdly, I would be looking at your posture. And that I'm looking at firstly, the pelvis, because if you imagine your pelvis, sorry, I'm so technical and boring, but bear with me, I will wrap this up soon. If you imagine the pelvis like a bowl, when you're pregnant, and your bump begins to grow, that bowl sort of tips forward. So all the water would slosh out the front of the bowl. And that shift in the pelvis

has so many implications. I mean, the first thing that's going to happen is that all your organs and internal body tissue, the baby, the placenta, everything during pregnancy, it's not going to be resting equally across the bony structures of the pelvis and the pelvic floor. It's going to be shifted off the bony structures of the pelvis. And it's going to be resting equally across the bony structures of the pelvis and the pelvic floor it's going to be shifted off the bony structures of the pelvis and it's going to be resting much more onto your pelvic floor so there's a lot more pressure on that muscle group so postnatally we want to help that pelvis shift come back together and we we want to partially do that by obviously working the deep core yes pelvic floor but also things like your glutes. So your glutes that are at the back of this pelvic tilt, by strengthening the glutes,

we're going to help that pelvis to tilt back into its optimum position. So we want to look at how are your glutes working, you know, stuff like that. And then we also want to look at our upper body because if we're breastfeeding or nursing in general, however you're choosing to feed your baby, we're often in this position. And again, that's going to impact how well we breathe, which is going to impact how well we can activate our core. So working on the upper back, so we can get our posture into a good position. And it's things like this that are actually really simple once you know it. It's really simple when you know it, but not everyone knows it. And then being able to share that information. And once we've done those things, then we're going to be a much better position to up the intensity of

our exercise. But rather than working on posture and the pelvis and the deep core and the glutes, women are being like, okay, I feel better. I think I'm going to go for a 5k because I want to burn the baby weight. And then we're going to encounter issues. By the way, it's not boring at all. I find it all fascinating. And I'm so clueless with this kind of terminology or knowledge. Like even when I go to exercise classes and they're like, suck in your core. And I'm like, so clueless, like kind of breathing in, like, I think this might be right. And that's why it was so hard for me to even do like pelvic floor exercises. Cause we've never really been

taught, which is why I found like pelvic health, like the pelvic floor trainers really good. Cause it was the only thing where I could actually measure if I was even doing it or not so that pelvic floor trainer for example I don't know if you still have it again I get lots of questions about this are you talking about the little machine like yeah like the LV yeah okay yeah so they will have their place for some women but again what we don't talk about is when we have an overactive pelvic floor which many women encounter postnatally because they become so upset. We're told strengthen, strengthen, strengthen, strengthen, strengthen. So women are doing this.

But actually, again, you know, if I use my fist as this example, if you've got if your muscle is overly tight, if you've got an overly tight pelvic floor, you can't I can't hold anything. I literally I can't use my fist because it's already tight. So often women experience something like urinary incontinence, or they might have pain during sex. It's actually because they've got a partially clenched pelvic floor because it's overactive. They've been doing so much strengthening. And they're like, well, I do all my pelvic floor exercises. Apparently my pelvic floor is really strong, but I've still got urinary incontinence.

And it's because you've got an overly active pelvic floor. And what they need to be doing is actually working on releasing the pelvic floor and relaxing the pelvic floor. We don't talk about that enough. And so many women are experiencing symptoms of this and thinking they need to strengthen more when actually what they need to be doing is taking a good inhale and working on relaxing their pelvic floor because it's actually overly tight. pelvic floor because it's actually overly tight. This is really interesting to me because obviously 18 months postpartum, I went to my pelvic health physio on Friday and she has diagnosed me with post-traumatic pelvic pain and something that's called associated dyspareunia, which is essentially what you're saying, like the tightness and pain, and which I thought was because of stitches or prolapse. But she was like, no, no, apparently women, I won't get really technical

because obviously it's not my experience, but she said women hold a lot of their stress and their trauma in their pelvis. And so I've actually been getting pain, whether it's from trying to have sex or whatever it is, but postnatally because all my muscles were basically like all tightened up. So she just has been doing these really simple exercises just to loosen the muscles but like it's frustrating because obviously you're like talking about these exercises and talking about oh yeah actually maybe you shouldn't be doing all these pelvic floor exercises actually you need to be relaxing them but then I find it personally

like quite overwhelming because how on earth are we meant to know what to do I totally sound like I keep trying to bring up the book to try and sell it but no please bring up your book because this is obviously why you're passionate about it but that's why i wrote it exactly what you're saying is why i wrote it because this is stuff that everyone should know you know when we do antenatal classes yeah and you're told how to swallow your baby and we need to be giving women these this type of information and this level of detail about what's happening in their body because it's no small task and it's not i couldn't sit here and say one thing that's going to cater for everybody and i sometimes wonder whether maybe that's the reason that no one's really been vocal about it before

because it feels so overwhelming because there's so many different options for so many different people and no one knows what's going on was actually if we if we shared the knowledge with women to understand what are you looking out for what signs are you looking out for you've just touched on okay pain during intercourse pain if you're inserting a tampon urinary incontinence that can be a sign of an overactive pelvic floor you're absolutely right you carry a lot of stress and tension in your pelvic region. I noticed after having my twins, I had really bad jaw stiffness. I kept clenching my jaw. And it's because your jaw, again, this could get really technical. You have deep layers of myofascia. And there's a theory, someone called Thomas Myers, who works on a basis of deep lines of fascia that connect different areas of your body.

And the one that's mainly relevant for pre and postnatal health is the myofascial deep front line. And this line of fascia runs all the way from your jaw, all the way down your neck, through your respiratory system, which is why I keep banging on about breathing, through your pelvis, through your pelvic floor and down all the way to the bottom of your feet. So another sign that you might have an overactive pelvic floor, tightness in your pelvic floor is if you clench your jaw a lot or if you curl your toes. If you're doing an ab exercise or a core exercise and you find that you are gripping your toes to try and balance or hold your core, whatever it is you're doing, if you're clenching your jaw or you're curling your toes, the exercise is too hard because you're actually gripping where your core should be handling the load.

So that's a sign. Again, I have in this book green and red flags of things to look out for when you're exercising that would indicate an exercise is too challenging, when to scale it back. And clenching your jaw or curling your toes is one of them. And it's just so connected. And all people need is to know it back and clenching your jaw or curling your toes is one of them. And it's, it's just, it's just so connected and all people need is to know it. Well, you know, now you know it, now you know it. So if you're doing something and you realize you're doing whatever ab exercise it is, and you'll realize you're clenching your jaw, you'll know that actually your, your core isn't

able to carry that load. So you need to scale it back and we need to be looking at what else we need to do to, to get ourselves to the point where we can do it. Welcome to Paranormal Activity with me Yvette Fielding, a brand new podcast bringing together people's real ghost, extraterrestrial and paranormal stories as well as getting some inside details from those who study the supernatural. I'll be listening through your paranormal stories every week and try to understand them, as well as chatting about my own encounters with an occasional paranormal investigator too. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts from, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast. Just search for Paranormal Activity with Yvette Fielding.

I genuinely can't wait to read it because do you know what? I've not really exercised since having ALF, which obviously has a knock-on effect to my mental well-being, but I think it's because I genuinely feel a bit overwhelmed and afraid of not only my body but it's like where on earth do you start and obviously you're told about I probably won't be able to say it right but diastasis everyone says it differently by the way so you're not alone some people say diastasis recti but I say diastasis recti that's why I just I just stick to tummy gap yeah mine's the tummy mind the tummy gap. But, you know, we kind of, you know, for somebody like me who isn't an expert and who, you know, I do my best, I like exercise, but I've never really like studied anything about the body or I find,

you know, the whole everything's just a bit overwhelming for me. But then it's like we try and learn a little bit. So it's like, oh, be careful because of the tummy gap. Or, oh, be careful because you're going to put too much load on on your pelvic floor and so then I end up doing nothing because I'm like I just don't know what to do anymore and then now I'm in this kind of like phase where I've talked openly about I'm trying to decide if it is even possible like do I want a second or not but then I'm like well do I need to start exercising but I just feel this like constant pressure so I imagine loads of people listening as well are just like,

I don't know what to do or when to do it or how to do it. If anyone is listening, like you said, and is thinking, I still don't have a clue. I hear that there's loads of information out there, but I literally don't have a clue where to start. My advice would be for postnatal women. Now we're talking about like postnatal recovery. My advice would be to start with breathing, learn about how to breathe

correctly with your shoulders down, expanding your rib cage, really actually taking a 360 degree breath. Then I would look at engaging the pelvic floor and the deep core together. So the transverse abdominis and the pelvic floor together. I would look at realigning the pelvis. Often that comes with glute strengthening exercises and posture. So looking at the upper back so that we're able to take a good breath. That's where I would start. And then I would start with exercises like the pelvic tilt, and everyone can look these up, the pelvic tilt, leg slides, the bridge is fantastic because it's the core and the glutes, pelvic floor, transverse abdominus, glutes, everything in in one exercise i'd look at the bird dog exercise

that is where i would start so i would look at posture pelvis and the deep core i'm literally going to be writing all these exercises down and then going on to google like what are they does um does whether or not you breastfeed have any impact on exercise yeah so i get asked a lot about i'm so glad you asked that question because i get asked all the time can exercise impact breastfeeding but very rarely do i get asked the way you just did which is such a great question because the answer is yes so can breastfeeding impact exercise which it absolutely can so i'm sure have you come across the hormone relaxing before i've heard is that the one where basically it softens all your muscles?

Exactly. Yes, exactly. So basically- Or your bones or something. So you, no, you were doing really well. You're like, stop talking, we're going to cut that one out. So relaxin is a hormone. It starts to be produced from two weeks after conception, so really early on in pregnancy. And then you produce really high levels of this hormone throughout pregnancy. And its main goal is to loosen the ligaments, so your joints, to make your joints more mobile. So it loosens the ligaments in and around the pelvis so that during childbirth, your pelvis can widen and everything can happen so the baby can descend

down the birth canal. But our body can't isolate it to just the pelvis. So what that means, what the role of that hormone actually means is that all the joints in our body are going to be compromised in terms of their stability. So if you're doing something like when you're, I don't know, lifting weights, for example, I get asked again about lifting weights in pregnancy, which you can do. But what we want to be careful of is that we're not overly throwing back the weight or overly stretching, even if you're not lifting weights. If you're going for a stretch, the reason we don't want to do these long stretches where we're holding this stretch is because our ligaments and our joints are already compromised from this hormone and we don't want to put additional pressure on

there. So when you are breastfeeding, postpartum, sorry, you will produce this hormone for up to five months after delivery. If you're breastfeeding, you will continue to produce relaxin at high levels until about five months after you stop breastfeeding. So it's something that we want to take into account because if you are looking to do something like high impact, I don't know, running or jumping or whatever it is you want to do, which you are still able to do if you're a breastfeeding mother and you've done all the correct rehabilitation work. But we want to be aware if we're breastfeeding that this hormone is playing a role so that we don't push too much weight overhead too quickly or we're not swinging the arm back because it could lead to injury. So that's something we really want to be aware of. And also that this will play a role on our pelvic floor. So when we are looking at pelvic floor strengthening, relaxing is going to just impact how our body moves. So we just want to be aware of that when we are breastfeeding.

So interesting. Our bodies are just like absolutely fascinating. And this is another thing. I know you touched on it earlier, like we are not only kind of growing the future but our bodies are just doing this absolutely mad thing like our muscles relaxing our bones moving like producing milk or any like the whole thing and then we are boiled down to the way in which we look but and that's what I meant to you when I said, you know, I feel like to me, I really want to change that, exactly that. And I think by sharing that knowledge, once we understand all these things that we've just talked about that our body is doing, like what?

And then get back into your baby jeans. It's so irrelevant because actually how incredible, how incredible is the female body with everything that it's so irrelevant because actually how incredible how incredible is the female body with everything that it's doing and like I'm in awe of my body I've never been more body confident than when I was a mum because I'm like this thing is like a powerhouse for what it's created and it still gets me up every day and gets me through the day to raise these humans that it's just created and birthed. Like, I think it's incredible. And I would love women to feel that power of what it feels like when you are seriously proud of what you, your body and your mind have achieved.

And what incredible strength physically and mentally that takes. That's no joke. and what incredible strength physically and mentally that takes. That's no joke. It's funny, isn't it? Because I feel like we obviously all grew up with this weird pressure around diet culture, unrealistic beauty standards, kind of being constantly told, if you just weigh a little bit less and you shrink yourself,

you'll be happy or you'll be more lovable or you'll be more beautiful or whatever it is. But we don't actually judge each other like that. If I go to the beach and I see women all different shapes and sizes I love it and I genuinely I don't know whether it's just I've kind of re-brainwashed myself but I love seeing like cellulite and dimples I genuinely do I'm like I love I love seeing it and even on my son like Al's got the most amount of cellulite I've ever seen but it's so cute and I'm like it is it's so cute but why have we been totally brainwashed to like boil ourselves down to

the way in which we look and I spent years hating my body and even when I look back now I'm like it's so mad to me you know I was like a lingerie model and I was almost like one of the poster girls of this unrealistic beauty standard and i hated myself because i was so used to seeing photographers photoshop me and airbrush me and i felt like if i was just a little bit more this and i even when i was like the smallest version of myself i i had no self-esteem so it didn't make me more lovable because i'd get fucked around by men all the time like the lie that we are sold it's it's such a lie. So then I went through this big, like, I'm going to love my body.

I'm going to love my body. But now I'm a bit like, I don't really care how my body looks. I care what it does for me. And I feel like Alf teaches me a lot about that as well because, you know, he'll walk around naked. He loves being naked. He's not there thinking, he doesn't even,

like, he's not like, I hate my legs, but he's also not like I love my legs my favorite part of my body because of how it looks is this or that like he just has a body and he he loves what it does for him like he you know he loves running around he loves this and I try to really I'm trying to really change it now not to be like I hate my body but also not to be like I love my boobs I love my bum it like, wow, I just want my body to work without pain. Yeah. So I actually, I always think of what my body, like you just said there, you know, what it's, what it's doing for you. And I always think, what can I do for it? Because it's doing

so much for me every day. It's getting me up every day. You know, I mean, just look at this last year, it's recovering from viruses. It's absorbing the sun. I don't know, you know, I mean, just look at this last year, it's recovering from viruses. It's absorbing the, I don't know, everything. Every day our body is doing amazing things. Lifting up babies. Lifting up babies. But it's absorbing nutrients. It's literally like this incredible machine. And I'm thinking, what can I do for it? And sometimes what I can do for it is I'll go for a run. And sometimes what I do for it is I go to bed because it needs to go to bed. So like, I'm always thinking, your body's always communicating with you. We just have to learn to understand it. And now that I have this incredible respect for my body, I want to, I want to support it in the way that it supported me, which it does every day. It does during

pregnancy and postnatally and every single day. So, you know, I just think we should treat it with respect. Can we talk a little bit, amen, by the, I just think we should treat it with respect. Can we talk a little bit, amen, by the way, but can we talk a little bit about the- Can we move on? No, no, it's kind of not moving on. It's like moving sideways with it because I feel like a lot of this stuff we're talking about, like respecting our body and what it does for us

and listening to our body, it kind of comes to the more sort of like wellbeing and mental health side of it. But do you know what I found really triggering and actually even the word is in about your intro bit it's that idea that to be happy like there's all these like really cheesy reels that go around on Instagram now and it's like if you want to be happy if you want to live forever and it's always like the secret is sleep and when when you've got a child that doesn't sleep i would always be like fuck off like i can't sleep like i just want to be happy and i want to feel like myself and i want

to be able to say like exercise again without worrying that my insides are going to fall out and it's always the answer is sleep so how like for any mums or even dads who are listening who are like I'm sick of being told that the answer to everything for my body my mind and my spirituality is sleep like what can you say to us because you must get it because you're a mum of four yeah oh yeah I get that I get that yes oh my gosh I get that and I had exactly the same thought process and also I remember at the end of pregnancy being like, I trust Mother Nature, but something's not right here because I feel like I'm about to have a newborn,

but I'm also not sleeping because pregnancy is so uncomfortable. So how is this? I feel like I need a lot of sleep now. And somehow Mother Nature missed a trick because I'm not sleeping now and I'm not going to sleep when the baby's here. So what's going on? So what I share in the book is I talk about sleep, how important sleep is and what happens's here. So what's going on? But so what I share in this, in the book is I talk about sleep, how important sleep is and what happens during sleep. But then I also talk about if we're

not getting a lot of sleep and the role, firstly, I talk about naps, if you can, when is the best time to get a nap during the day, because it does matter. We have our circadian rhythm. So our circadian rhythm, sorry. So, you know, works on 24 hour cycle and we have a sleep drive that is pushing us towards sleep. And so the two of them are working together to night and day, help us sleep. When is the best time to nap within that? And then if you can't even manage naps,

I talk about rest and the benefits of rest that we can get that might not be quite as good as sleep, but that are still really beneficial and ways that we can rest in chaos, because sometimes that is what we do. Like, you know, I always say like meditation or mindfulness is not always sitting on a yoga mat, like in the flowing valleys of, I don't know, wherever. Sometimes it's like sitting in the middle of a mess of Lego with kids like, and I'm like,

you just kind of like try to be mindful and zen in those moments and so it's about rest what are the best things for rest a super simple exercise if you are low on energy super simple is to lie down and put your feet up onto something whether it's a sofa or a coffee table or your bed or whatever just lie down feet on top of something I do this all the time like kids climbing all over my face feet. And that's just going to help that return blood flow. And by that return blood flow, because when we've been standing or sitting for long periods of time with gravity, it draws the blood towards your lower extremities. So putting your feet up onto something and allowing that return blood flow to take place, we're going to have

more oxygen, more nutrients around our body, and we're going to feel more energized. So if anything that you take away and you are like, I'm knackered all the time, how can I just get some energy? If you've exhausted the coffee and the tea, lie down and put your feet up onto something. And honestly, like I feel better within three minutes, I'm up and I'm like, okay, I'm ready to go. And again, it's partly about understanding. You know, when I talked about sleep drive and the circadian rhythm and how they work together, understanding that and being able to use that to your advantage and knowing when to rest, when not to rest, when to nap, when not to nap, when are the most important times and then being able to like utilize our energy through that. So interesting. I'm like fighting the urge now

not to be like lying down on my back as we finish the podcast. That's a kush. I'm meditating. What do you think as well? Because I remember a really big moment for me. And actually what I would label as almost toxic positivity is this, I say toxic positivity, but I also recognize that it is really important. But there's this like huge pressure for mums to be like, take time for yourself. Make sure you have you time. Make sure you have you time. Make sure you have you time. And I remember in the kind of throes of newborn days, finding that really such an annoying thing because I was like, I don't know how to do that. I thought before Alf was here, I was like, I'll be able to have baths and I'll be able to go out and get my nails done.

But because he didn't take a bottle and I was exclusively breastfeeding, I felt like I couldn't. I remember even the first time I went to Pilates postpartum, it was probably about six months postpartum or five months. Obviously, it was lockdown as well, so things hadn't been open. But I cried when it finished because I was like, that was the first 50 minutes that I've just had doing something for myself that isn't like anything to do with where I can hear or see Alf. Like what is your tips, even like on a personal level of, you know,

going through motherhood, what are your tips for people who are just feeling completely like touched out and like they can't for whatever reason have that physical time away? I totally understand that. And I remember, I remember that most clearly with my first because, and actually Ezra, sorry, my second never, didn't take a bottle either. And that was one of the things with my, people ask me all the time with four, how do you cope with four? And actually number one was by far the biggest challenge because I was not prepared for the constant demand of parenting that it can be. So for example, like breastfeeding, for example, I was breastfeeding the constant demand and I felt like it was always

on me. The baby only had to go and everyone's like, here you go. And I was like, I've just done this. And they're like, yeah, he's hungry. I'm like, he's not hungry. He can't be hungry. I've fed him like a thousand times and I just really need a break. And everyone's like, he must be hungry. He must be hungry. hungry and it's just I remember just being like I just I've got no space and no time and I think for me it became little things it was little moments that that I took something like having a shower without the baby being on the bouncer on the floor I'd just be like I just want to have I'm just going to have a shower and actually understanding that my needs and my child's needs are really interconnected. So I had to take care of myself. So if he was crying and it was whatever time of the night and I was like, I'll be like,

you know, I actually, I just, I need to just take a shower and he's just going to have to cry for five minutes. Cause I need, I just need to take a shower and I need to take that time. You know, so I demanded those small moments. If you can't even manage those small moments, this is going to sound like one of those cheesy things you listen to on Instagram, but I totally mean it, right? Go outside. Even if you're with your baby, like for me, earth has everything we need and going outside instantly i feel better about whatever it is you know emotional it doesn't matter if i'm outside i feel better so if you cannot go out on your own put your baby in your stroller or wherever go outside in the garden walk to a park

whatever just go outside and take some deep breaths and it's amazing what just that little thing can do. We have to learn to. And also, I think knowing that time moves on, I think those days where you feel like it's really overwhelming and it's really that demand is nonstop. It doesn't last forever. I have a friend who's pregnant at the moment as well. And we were talking about breastfeeding. And she was like, I've learned all about the latching and this and that. And I wanted to give her my honest experience of breastfeeding because I always wish someone had prepared me for this incredible demand. But I also didn't want to scare her and be one of those mums that shares a horror story. So I just said to her, look, just know when you have those moments where you are really overwhelmed and you're like, I am just really stressed. and you're like, I am just really stressed, just know that it's just a moment and it's not, it doesn't last forever. These moments go and then there'll be periods of time where it all feels really easy and really smooth sailing. So just know that this moment isn't forever, moments go.

And I remember there's a quote, something about the days can seem long, but the years are short. I think that's so true. I've had days where it gets to 3pm and I'm like, I've still got to do dinner, bath and bed. Like I'm so tired and I've got to do dinner, bath and bed. And actually the years, I cannot believe my eldest is almost eight. That is absolute madness. like you know time time it just it gets quicker it gets quicker and it just goes and and these moments aren't forever the good ones and the bad ones it's so true isn't it because people always said to me in the beginning this too shall pass but I to me it sounded a bit biblical I don't know I just didn't really connect with it but now that Alf is just turned 18 months

over the weekend I'm like wow it really I love the way you say that as if it's a birthday. Yeah, it feels like a birthday. Yeah, but I feel like, because I haven't really considered any of the months, but I feel like 18 months, I think because I struggled so much from six to 12 months that 12 months was a huge milestone. But then 18 months, I'm like, wow, he's already a year,

like it's a year and a half. And I've enjoyed it the last six months. And so now I'm like, wow's already a year like it's a year and a half and like and I've enjoyed it the last six months yeah and so now I'm like wow it's halfway to two and it's made me realize that if I ever go on the journey again if I if I ever decide to or I'm able to it's like I feel like it will allow I it's almost like I wish somebody had just said you know what some parts of motherhood are so shit like they really are yeah yeah and then i'd be like okay because i've i spent so much time thinking this is an awful mistake oh my god what have i done this is so shit this is so shit what have i done what have i done but actually now it's amazing so i feel like i could

go into it again being like okay even if two months of it or a day of it or a week of it or shit at least i know that there's light at the end of the tunnel well and also like you said you know there's no there's no one-size-fits-all so I'm not trying to say for everyone but for me the first one was by far by far the biggest challenge because I was just you you can't prepare you just have to live it and then you know now four I'm not going to say it's a piece of cake I was about to say it's a piece of cake it's not a piece of cake but four is my most enjoyable parenting experience. I had really bad, I know we're not going to go into this now, but I had really very severe anxiety and OCD

with my first two extreme, like I was in verticals, crazy. You know, I was that person that you would see stopping in the street, tapping everything. I'm completely free of it now. And it's just, it doesn't mean the more kids you have,

the more stressful it is. That's, I guess that's what I'm trying to say that's interesting you know it's it's a completely new experience and actually you're I now feel like I'm able to cope so much better when I do encounter challenges than I was at the beginning what did you find helped your anxiety did you do like is it called EDMR or EMDR? Has I just been encouraged to do that? Oh gosh, do not. I would love to do that. No, no, I didn't do that. What it actually was for me, and I'll say this very quickly, what it actually was for me that helped my anxiety, and this is specific to postnatal anxiety because it's very different to postnatal depression. But when you have anxiety as a mum, you know, we're always told as a mum, like, trust your instincts. If I take my kid to the doctor because they're sick the doctor will be like oh no I'm sure they're fine you can take

them home but you know your mother's instinct so if you feel like something's wrong then come back and I'd be like what what pressure and that freaked me out because I was you know I was constantly checking temperatures and everything catastrophizing everything because I felt so responsible and what I learned to do eventually through, I did hypnotherapy and I did talk therapy because when you have anxiety, there's so much in your brain and you almost don't have time to process your thoughts. You just act because they're happening. Is that I was able to eventually distinguish between anxiety thoughts and instinct thoughts. And what is my instinct?

When is it instinct and do I need to act? And when is it actually my anxiety driving me to do something and I need to be able to push it to the side? And in order to do that, I use hypnotherapy because that really helped to slow the thoughts so that when they came in, I was able to process them and go, no, thank you. Or, okay, I need to do something. But exercise gave me the same thing. And that's why I love it so much. Because actually, if I went out for a run or a walk for 15, 20 minutes, I'd come home. And that process allowed me to just be able to process my thoughts better. And now I'm better at it. Now I can do it really quickly. But it took years, years learning to understand when is it my my instinct and when is it my anxiety and that like how to do that is a whole nother conversation

that's a whole nother podcast yeah it's so interesting isn't it because I feel like I've probably been one of those people that's always like trust your instinct trust your instinct and now I'm going to be a bit more mindful of that because you're right there is so much pressure especially if it's not something that is like that you can feel like you can differentiate because of anxious thoughts oh Shakira I feel like yeah you're right we need to do another podcast but I've just loved chatting to you about so many things and I can't like I said I just can't wait to read your book and hopefully lots of you are going to read it as well because I felt so overwhelmed at the beginning even when you were talking about all of this stuff but you're right I read the book and it's

individual for everyone and it's not our fault also that we're not taught about this stuff. Yeah and like you just said you know this we've talked about so much stuff which again makes it sound overwhelming but to me it's sharing the knowledge and then you'll pick out what's relevant for you and then you can go down that road and work on what's relevant to you so that that was just my aim was to share that and I thank you for allowing me here to to talk about it thank you I actually feel excited to I feel like I've been procrastinating on exercise but even just from the conversations around anxiety like you're right like I used to one of the reasons I love running was because it allowed me to clear my head so I actually I'm

leaving the conversation feeling inspired to kind of stop procrastinating with it and get back into it so thank you very much thanks for having me what an inspiration Shakira Akabusi I feel like I could have spoken to her for so long also I have always wanted twins a friend of mine actually had twins a year and a half ago. So yeah, I feel like there's so much more I could have spoken to her about, but I hope that was useful for you guys. I just quickly want to share a lovely message I got from Annabelle who says, I love your podcast. It gets me through those crazy days with my daughters. I wanted to message you wondering whether to have a second baby. I've got a 12 week old and a 20 monthold, so I'm currently in the depths of it.

I have to say this time around has been so different. I too had a baby in lockdown and looking back now, it really did have an impact on my first experience of being a mom. This time around, I feel slightly lighter about those hard moments, a lot busier having to split my time between both children. But the main thing I've noticed that's different this time is the balance of childcare with my husband. It just seems more even this time as he tends to look after our toddler while I manage baby. Whereas when we just had the one, I often felt like it was on me to look after the first born. Don't get me wrong. It's definitely harder with two, but I really understand why couples tend to have two children. I like the balance of it. And there's nothing better than seeing the

bond between them grow. Of course, the elders can get jealous, but that's just siblings for you. I hope you figure out what's best for you andabelle I'm still loving hearing all of these different experiences and stories and obviously it is reassuring to hear from Shakira that I mean I do feel she's super woman to be able to have four children especially two twins and say that it's calm and easier but no it's amazing so thank you so much and I'd love to hear from all of you. So get in touch if you want on WhatsApp where you can send a voice message. It's free and you can do it anonymously if you want. The number is 075-999-27527. Or you can email me at askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com, which is what Annabelle did. Or of course, you can leave a review on an Apple podcast which also helps others to find us so I hope you loved the episode and I will be back same time same place next week