Mansplaining pregnancy / postpartum fitness

[Pitavina]

I ‘follow’ a male friend on social media who is a fitness instructor and lately he has been spouting loads of generic post partum / pregnancy fitness advice that is really jarring with me. I feel like pregnancy and pregnancy recovery is such a unique and individual experience and also an exclusively female experience and seeing a man ‘advising’ women on what they should and shouldn’t be doing doesn’t sit right. Seeing posts like “pm me for details on what you should be doing to get your bod back in the immediate postpartum period” have given me the rage!

I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable. I’ve had very difficult pregnancies, births and post partum recoveries and I am currently really unhappy with how I feel in my own skin. I’m not sure if my issue is with a man purporting to be the authority on this uniquely female experience or whether the issue is actually that I’m unhappy with myself.

I do have a massive problem with bounce back culture and with societal pressure generally on women during pregnancy and postpartum. But again, I wonder to what extent that just me being unhappy with me.

Am I right in thinking it’s not a man’s place to hand out this kind of advice?

I don't think that it's unreasonable for a man to offer sessions on regaining strength and fitness following pregnancy, as long as he's properly qualified in this area, gives good advice and delivers sessions that actually help women. That said, I used to run sessions for both pre and post-natal women and the overwhelming response that I had was that they preferred me training them because I had three kids of my own; 3 different pregnancies, three different birth experiences (I was lucky enough to have an EMCS, a ventouse delivery and then finally a very quick vaginal delivery at home) and this meant that I could empathise more with how they were feeling, both physically and mentally. As well as giving them fitness and dietary advice I could also tell them what actually worked for me as a Mum. To be honest it's the little tips that I gave clients that seemed to have more impact.

I understand why it's got your back up, but it's a slightly tricky one. Maybe he's done a bunch of research on exercise suitable for post-partum women. Maybe he knows women who are personal trainers and he's sought advice from them. I mean... probably not, but it's possible he knows what he's talking about.

Also, absolutely tons of women do describe it as getting their body back and very much want that. It's shit if they feel an expectation that they should be able to 'bounce back' straight away, but I'm not sure we can really expect people (men or women) in the physique improvement industry to take the moral high ground over their actual potential customers!

I'm slightly playing devil's advocate. I had bad post-natal anxiety and dangerously high bp. Exercise saved possibly my life and certainly my sanity, but I didn't regard it as 'getting my bod back'! He certainly could have phrased it a lot better, OP.

I’m 38wks at the moment and really, really looking forward to getting back into my pre-pregnancy diet and exercise habits. I’ve missed them and although it might be unpopular to say it in some circles… I very much want my body back!

I also meant to say that I couldn’t give two hoots about whether a man or a woman helps me do it either!

I'd rather go to a woman with kid(s) myself - they just have more practical experience of it all. Little things like being OK with bringing the baby along, pacing the class so it's OK to take a break to breastfeed, spotting the mum who is struggling and pointing her to pn counselling etc. I'll be forever in debt to the trainer who told me about the birth reflections clinic she'd been to herself. People who haven't birthed may have the best intentions in the world but they don't share that life transforming physical experience. If you don't need that shared experience to work out post-partum great, but it's a good to have in my book.

@MrsTerryPratchett

I loathe the idea of getting your body back. It's so misogynistic. My body produced an entire human being. From scratch. Surely we should be celebrating that a touch more than a flat stomach and perky breasts.

Spam him with penis enhancement ads. Only joking sort of.

This. You still have a body thanks.

@trancepants would you mind sharing the activity you took up to get fit?

Follow @gussiegrips on twitter or @Gusset_grippers on insta. She used to be on here, funny women's health physio. She's tweeting reminders to do your pelvic floor exercises and how to do them. It's helping me!

Your instincts are right, OP. This Dunning-Kruger patient knows less about the subject than any mother, has clearly not completed any studies on the topic, but feels qualified to hold forth. Red flag warning! Avoid. Avoid. Avoid. And tell everyone you know who might need that information!

@MonsignorMirth

Almost every women I know constantly posts these fucking, love your tiger stripes type posts and the reality is they make most women feel helpless and miserable.

I do feel for you but tiger stripes are about stretch marks aren't they? I wouldn't assume if someone posts that they are also saying you should just accept and live with any actual damage to your body.

Most of the resources I've found (mutu etc) are very clear that you should NOT accept leaking urine, a damaged core, etc. But as I said, I've had to look these up myself.

My tiger stripes became an elephant-hide tum. I quite like it when people post about stretch marks and mum tums, because short of surgery there's not much I can do to fix my abdomen, and otherwise I feel a bit invisible among a crowd of washboard abs. It's comforting to know that other people have the same problem.

He sounds like a pain, but just to give another perspective on this sort of treatment and therapy, maybe for anyone involved in offering it or advising...

I much prefer to go to male practitioners for help with my damaged pelvis. Because my body didn't manage to do that extraordinary thing and produce live children. It still got damaged trying. I found the two women specialists locally branded everything around babies and pinkness and new mums etc. They made a lot of that fact they were mothers and knew what we have been through ..
This is obviously right and fine for lots of people and I am glad for them.

I prefer someone who has no idea and doesn't expect to. Still, I suspect I'd find any male PT posting for women to PM them for tips on body attractiveness creepy, never mind the post partum business. He's just not behaving professionally.

Is he saying it on his business page or his personal page? If it's his business page and it's a service he offers then meh, I couldn't get too worked up about it. After having DS I was keen to get my body back, not for aesthetics, not for anyone else, but for myself. I was very active in the years before conceiving and was proud of what my body could do, during pregnancy I cooled right off, but postpartum I was really keen to get working on myself again. I had a female PT but swapped to a man as I found ironically he actually listened more, the woman often would assume or tell me how I was feeling . I think it's personal choice, and it can be important if doing medium intensity exercise and above to have some input.

Yes - if it's all "laydeez, let me show you how to look good for the man in your life again", that's creepy, but it sounds like he's using common phrases.

If he's done some work to learn about treatment and conditioning, not all women, mothers or not, will necessarily produce better results. So long as he's open about his sex and (lack of) qualifications, women can make an informed choice and engage with him or not.