It’s no secret that having a baby brings a lot of challenging life changes. If you are expecting your first, it’s hard to know what exactly these changes will be and how best to prepare for them. Even if you are expecting your second or third, there are unknowns regarding how to juggle more than one child or how the needs of this baby may differ from your first. Here are a few tips from my own personal experience. By no means is this list exhaustive, but hopefully it will get you started.

When a mom comes to my class in the postpartum period, I always ask if she has a diastasis recti (DR). "A what?!" is the most common response. What the heck is "diastasis recti"? If you have never been pregnant, chances are you've never heard this term. Let's be honest- even if you have been pregnant, you may not know what this means! According to biomechanist, Katy Bowman, a DR is "an unnatural distance between the right and left halves (of the rectus abdominis), meaning that one (or both) of the halves has pulled away from the midline of the body." We often hear an explanation of a "split between" or "separation of" the ab muscles, but given that the rectus abdominis is…