In this episode, we are focusing on postpartum exercise with Dr. Lindsey Mathews Cantu. Lindsey is committed to supporting women in the various seasons of their lives. She started BIRTHFIT in 2013 with a deep belief that movement can be the bridge to cultivate our own intuition and a trust in our bodies. Lindsey is a Nervous System Based Chiropractor, Mercier Therapist, Birth Doula, NLP Practitioner, and Strength and Conditioning Coach. Through all the hats she wears in this world, she created BIRTHFIT as she saw a huge gap for sustainable, nervous system based movement and training for women in all chapters and cycles of their lives, specifically cycling, preconception, pregnant, and postpartum women. 
Beyond BIRTHFIT, Lindsey works in her chiropractic wellness practice, Willow Haus, that she co founded with Dr. Bria and Matt Mutch. Majority, if not all, of her clientele that she sees in office are women and pediatrics. In her spare time, Lindsey enjoys connecting with her husband Lance, working in her garden, and taking long, slow walks. 
Lindsey’s core values are LOVE, FREEDOM,  and CONNECTION. 

Links/Resources:
Free Training: Optimizing Hormone Health with Mineral Balance 
Mineral Imbalance Quiz
Check out the Birthfit website 
Visit Lindsey’s practice
Listen to Lindsey’s podcast 
Follow Birthfit on Instagram 
Follow Willow Haus on Instagram 
Follow Lindsey on Instagram 
Birthfit youtube 
Hemorrhoids blog

Transcript:
Amanda Montalvo 0:00
Hey, this is Amanda Women’s Health dietitian.

Emily 0:02
And I’m Emily nutritional therapy practitioner and this is

Amanda Montalvo 0:05
the RU menstrual podcast where we help you navigate the confusing world of women’s hormones in teach you how to have healthy periods.

Emily 0:12
Each week we will be diving into a different topic on women’s health and sharing our perspective using nutrition, female physiology and metabolic health.

Amanda Montalvo 0:20
Our goal is to help you wade through conflicting health information and empower you on your healing journey.

Emily 0:25
We hope you enjoy it.

Amanda Montalvo 0:37
In this episode, we’re focusing on postpartum exercise with Dr. Lindsay Matthews Cantu Lindsey is committed to supporting women in the various seasons of their lives. She started birth it in 2013 with a deep belief that movement can be the bridge to cultivate our own intuition and trust in our bodies. Lindsey is a nervous system based chiropractor, whereas your therapist birth doula, NLP practitioner and strength and conditioning coach through all of the hats she wears in this world, she created birth fit as she saw a huge gap for sustainable nervous system based movement and training for women in all chapters in cycles of their lives. Specifically cycling, preconception pregnant and postpartum women. Beyond birth it Lindsay works in her chiropractic wellness practice, Willow house that she co founded with Dr. Bria and map much majority, if not all of her clientele that she sees in her office are women in pediatrics. And in her spare time, Lindsay enjoys connecting with her husband Lance working in her garden and taking long, slow walks. Thank you so much for being here, Lindsay. I’m excited to cover this postpartum fitness topic with you.

Lindsey Cantu 1:43
So thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I’m stoked to get into this with you.

Amanda Montalvo 1:48
Yeah, we I sent one do form before just to like get all our information in her bio and everything and any topics people want to cover, and Lindsay had the best topics. So I was like, Oh, these like they they really made me think it was good. I feel like because I’m in that postpartum season now or my daughter’s at the time of recording this five months. It’s just like, it’s a big transitional phase. So it was good for me to be like, Okay, these are these are really going to be helpful for women in any season of their postpartum. I would even think, you know, if you never did any recovery postpartum, if you’re two years postpartum, it’ll all be helpful. Let’s start with your background. Because I’m sure people hearing me read that off. We’re like, what? You have a diverse background. I mean, it makes sense. I feel like to me, it’s like having the nervous system based chiropractic care of strength and conditioning, like what a beautiful, like, I feel like collection of knowledge to share with people. What made you focus on pregnancy and postpartum?

Lindsey Cantu 2:44
Well, just like we were talking about before, I had no idea what I wanted to be or, you know, who I wanted to grow up into. And, you know, when I reflect back on this question, because people ask me this all the time, I truly feel that I created birth it as part of my healing for my maternal lineage. Even though I did not know it at the time, you know, I just, I knew from a young girl like very young age that I wanted to be of service to this world. And that’s all I knew. And I started out, you know, going down the pre med route at Texas a&m. And then I decided not to go to medical school, based on an experiences medical mission trip in Africa. And that’s when I made a pivot to chiropractic school. And that’s what I started to wake up to, like I was do, like, the power inside of the body and the self healing that we have, and like at our fingertips, and by no means was, like, I sold then, like, I was still on asthma medications. I was still on birth control. I was still like, you know, the standard American stuff. But you know, looking back, I know now why I created it. But then, you know, for me at the time, I was a actually a sports rehab chiropractor. And this was, you know, I went to chiropractic school, focusing on sports, focusing on rehab prehab, I would intern down at the Olympic Training Center, because I was in Los Angeles at the time. And you know, I wanted to be on the sidelines. I wanted to be, you know, at the biggest events, and I did like I graduated from chiropractic school. I joined three other gentlemen and practice and we were an awesome team that was rotating between sets, like on movies were rotating between athletic events. We were rotating just all over Los Angeles and doing all the Hollywood and sports things. And you would think that would be like pretty exhilarating and fun. But once I attended my first birth, I was like, oh, that’s that’s the event I need to be at. That’s the sports performance I need to support. This all happened over the timespan of a few years, but I started getting a lot of women in print practice because the gentleman at the time did not know what to do. You know, we in chiropractic school got one trimester of pregnancy and pediatrics. And, you know, we got more nutrition, more movement more anything than somebody in that, you know, standard medical doctor route. But still, I was like, I didn’t learn any of this growing up. I had never seen my mom birth, I had never seen my mom breastfeed. You know, I grew up pretty standard America. And as far as like, diet, lifestyle, everything. And I started thinking about just, what’s the possibility what could what could be? And you know, my, my eyes started opening whenever I just started asking questions. And there was a woman that she kind of started shifting my mindset, she came to me preconception and wanted to be in the best shape that she could be in to conceive. So I started looking some stuff up. And she dabbled in like vegetarian. And I was like, Well, I think you got to eat meat. So we went down that route, we started training and like all different planes of motions, we got adjustments once a week. And she conceived a little quicker than we thought she was going to conceive, because she wanted to conceive during her offseason of her TV show. Long story short, she asked me, you know, what’s the most efficient way to give birth? And, you know, she didn’t use those words, but that’s what was going through my head because she wanted to come back for the next season of her TV career. So I started looking things up. And that’s when I started doing doula training. And that was like, really the only thing I could find, as far as you know, what’s going on in birth, there was an diplomat course for chiropractors and I did all that. But there was only one weekend like, it’s one weekend, out of all the weekends that was dedicated to pregnancy, the rest were dedicated to pediatrics. So I did doula training. And I came back to her and this is like me being completely naive. I said, I think you have to have like an unmedicated birth, and you’re gonna heal quicker that way. And she was like, Okay, let’s do it. And I was like, Okay. She knows. So we don’t, we don’t know what we don’t know. And this was like, 2010, maybe 2011. And we were like, Let’s build the team. You know, like, I was thinking so totally, in alignment, like what you would do with sports, like you build the right team, you get the right players. I said, Okay, you know, we need a quarterback, who’s the quarterback. So that’s either your OB or your midwife. I said, Well, you know, we probably need a midwife because they support physiological birth, we’re an OB, they, you know, all their tools are, are what they like, they’re really good at operating, and intervening, but I don’t know that they necessarily support a physiological birth and natural birth process. And so she was like, Okay, we got a midwife. We got a doula. Because at the time, I was still practicing, I was like, I don’t think I can commit to this. But I can commit to your being a chiropractor. Even though I did that doula training, I was like, I don’t know about this. So she ended up setting up this whole team have had a beautiful unmedicated birth. And she ended up doing a birth in the hospital with the midwife that still had privileges in LA, because her husband was like, what’s going on. But then after that, I like I was able to observe the whole process, saw her basically right before labor, went to her house right after Labor birth, started the healing process immediately. And I was like, oh my god, this is wild. Shortly after that, I attended my my first birth. And that’s when I was just like, oh my god, like, I’ve never seen a woman, like truly step into her power and own her power. And just like, surrender to the forces of nature. And with that, I was like, there was nothing else on Earth that I want to do. And I want every woman to be able to experience this, you know, and looking back and reflecting on my life, you know, I realized that I was very disconnected from from my mom from my grandma didn’t grow up, you know, viewing the cyclist sacred, didn’t grow up honoring different seasons of our lives, just grew up in Super go mode, like achievement mode, productive mode. And when I saw this and started like, kind of just processing and integrating it, I was like, if every woman knew they had the power inside of them, Truly, you know, nothing would be off limits for them. You know that like it’s it’s phenomenal just to see that and witness that and observe that. So that was kind of the the origins and from there I I ended up taking every pregnancy postpartum course I could take but like I was mentioning there was really nothing available because This was like, you know, around 2010 2011, like over a decade ago. And so I did doula training, I did doula training twice to get two different teachers. Because the first time I doubted myself second time, okay, let’s really do this. And since then I’ve done it like two more times just to have different, different experiences. One of the events that stuck out to me early on, I did this course called sacred pregnancy. And we did a retreat through like women that came from all over but we met in Ojai did a sweat lodge got like super crunchy like it was my first introduction to crunchy. And I was like, I don’t know if I can do this, like I haven’t had any kids I don’t like, I just really doubt myself. And there was an elder woman there that basically pulled me aside and she was in her 60s. And she basically told me like, Hey, I don’t have any kids, all these children that I helped birth are my kids. And if you never have kids, it’s okay. But you are called to do this. And so, you know, that moment stuck with me. Like, just like a lightning bolt in the heart. And it was it was a powerful experience. And then, you know, there were other trainings that we’re pretty monumental, like, innate postpartum training was awesome. Yeah, a bunch of doula certifications, mercy, a, anything that had pregnancy and postpartum on it I took that was like, I need to know more about this. So that was like the origins of it. And then I started being a doula. And, you know, I worked in two different birth centers in Los Angeles, I worked in one that was on the west side, which was run by a certified nurse midwife. And then I worked on the east side, and that was run by a certified professional midwife. So I got to, like the two different styles of midwifery. And then I had a great chiropractic mentor, Dr. Berlin, who was like one of the Oh, geez, as far as like prenatal chiropractic goes. And then I had a great mentor and Dr. Stu Fishbein, who’s an out of hospital OB in Southern California. So I feel like I was taught by like, some of the legendary living legends, you know, that are still around that have helped pave the way for much of what you see on you know, social media today and what you know, we as women have access to now.

Amanda Montalvo 12:21
It shows you how different it is now, right, like being able to get all that information at your fingertips now. Whereas like, you had to take like, dozens and dozens of programs. I had to

Lindsey Cantu 12:30
drive. Yeah, I had to drive places like, spend the night hope for the best sort of thing. sleep in my car. Now you can take it online, you can take an online doula course. And you’re done. Yeah. Oh,

Amanda Montalvo 12:45
that’s not the same though.

Lindsey Cantu 12:46
I feel like Oh, totally that. Yeah. Oh, that’s

Amanda Montalvo 12:49
really cool, though. I was like, curious, too, cuz I was like, I know, Lindsey doesn’t have kids. But I would like never ask someone about that. But I really like, that’s cool that that woman in that sweat lodge was like, you probably assumed she’d had kids, right? It did. Yeah. And she didn’t, it just kind of shows you. You don’t necessarily have to. I mean, I think it changes your experience a little bit. But seeing it, I think is just like I saw my younger sister give birth. And it was life changing. And it’s like, I’m like, I cannot believe I was like, I don’t even know maybe like, third. I was like, in my late 20s At the time when she gave birth. And I was like, I can’t believe I’ve never seen this. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s

Lindsey Cantu 13:32
exactly what I thought. I was like, Wait, how do we need to learn how to breastfeed? How do we do that? You know, we haven’t learned that.

Amanda Montalvo 13:40
I know. So it is I wish it was more normal. I think now it’s gonna that’s gonna change. I think there’s like a whole revolution of women that are just like, I want better. I’m not gonna settle for, I’m not going to settle for not knowing and not understanding, which is

Lindsey Cantu 13:56
totally, and they want, they know that I feel like women are tapping into their, like, their intuition and know like, I know something’s, it’s it’s different. There’s something different out there. So let me just embrace this curiosity and explore.

Amanda Montalvo 14:12
Yes, even it doesn’t have to be like a, maybe you choose to get an epidural or something like it. Like it’s not so much about doing it perfectly. It’s about having the knowledge and being your own advocate and making your own choices. I think as you’re going through that process, very cool. It’s so funny that it started with just like someone, one of your clients that you are helping and working with, and then it kicked off the wheels

Lindsey Cantu 14:37
turning Yeah, and I think you know, it could have could have been anywhere anytime. Like I was sharing, like, you know, I think I did this as part of my healing. And, you know, I used to like doodle. You know, when I was doodling the name. I was doodling birth fit and it was way before I even tried CrossFit and which is wild. And then I was like wait, there’s this brilliant thing called CrossFit. What?

Amanda Montalvo 15:03
When did you find CrossFit?

Lindsey Cantu 15:04
I started doing CrossFit right around, it had to have been the end of 2011 2012. Like when I actually took a class, because I used to be one of those chiropractors that was like, Don’t do CrossFit. It ruins you, you know you’re gonna get injured. But then when it when I took CrossFit and dove right in, you know, because I’m like, Okay, let me just learn as much as I can about this. Since I’m in here, so I took level one, level two, I took CrossFit weightlifting, I took CrossFit football. I took it all pose reading, and I like, I was like, wait a sec, the deadlift doesn’t hurt your back your shitty movement hurts your back like yeah, okay, now, I got this.

Amanda Montalvo 15:49
Yeah, definitely. CrossFit gym is different. But yeah, I got a different experience. I was curious, though, because I’m like, I remember I met i, so I’ve met you during that time.

Lindsey Cantu 15:59
Yeah, yeah, it’s crazy. And we started at do so we started deuce in the park in Santa Monica. And then finally found a spot in Venice. And that’s where when we open deuce, but yeah,

Amanda Montalvo 16:12
it’s so crazy, even like having things come full circle now. And so you talked about, like, you saw your first birth. And it obviously completely changed you. I don’t know, I cannot imagine anyone not being changed by witnessing birth. It’s, and I think you can see like, it’s just so like, you’re just never the same in the best way, in like, really hard ways to I think it took me a while to like, be okay with like that I had such a painful birth. But I’m still like, I did it. I just did it and got through it. And it just, to me was like a negative experience. But I do think like, I’ll never be the same. There’s so many ways my body is the same, which is like cool, and like fun. But then there’s so many ways that it’s different. And I just think like reconnecting with your body postpartum is so important. And a lot of women obviously they want more information on like exercise and fitness, which we will get into we have a ton of Instagram questions. But I’m curious. Like, I think before you can exercise, you have to reconnect with our body. Yeah. So can you talk about like how new moms can start doing that once they have their babies? Oh, yeah.

Lindsey Cantu 17:18
So two, the biggest words that come up for me postpartum are integration and grounding. And if you’d like take a step back, and you start to view the human nervous system, like when we go through these experiences, like birth, or, you know, maybe you’ve been in a motor vehicle accident, or you’ve gone through a big breakup, a big move across country, these are big, you know, experiences for your nervous system. And we need these challenges, like a workout of, you know, strength, conditioning, CrossFit training, a cycle class, whatever all of that is basically stimulating your nervous system to adapt. And we need those basically, to make us more resilient to make us stronger, faster, harder to kill, anything like that. I like the word resilience. And so one of the things I like to say and remind moms, especially if we start the whole journey together, like preconception pregnancy, and then postpartum is like, babies, a hitchhiker on your nervous system. So their first experience with the world is through your thoughts and emotions and behavior, your movement patterns, they’re picking up on your movement patterns. They’re picking up on your energy they’re picking up on, you know, what you feel when your mother in law comes into the room or what you feel when you sit out in the sunshine, and you’re just like, letting everything go. They feel all of that. Do you both go through labor, birth, cesarean, whatever the birth experience is you both go through that together. And one of the other things like you’ll see, I find things that I like to say, and I say them over and over again. But you know, mom and baby have guaranteed tickets for birth. And you can relate this to like a roller coaster ride you both you to have tickets to that roller coaster ride. And I’d love it if your doula made it if your OB or your midwife, your husband, partner, whoever I’d love it if all the team made it, but maybe not. You know, sometimes, birth happens like super fast, and you two are the only ones guaranteed tickets to that experience. And you have within your capacity, all the tools you need. Do you have breath, sound and movement available. And so you’re going to do the dance of labor, you’re going to go through the birth experience together. And I often say it’s like climbing a mountain and mom’s got to climb this mountain. And everybody’s helping her up and she gets to the peak of this mountain. And when she’s at the peak of the mountain, she’s got to reach through to this other dimension as you probably felt and pull this life Earth’s I, and now they gotta come back down this mountain. And in our society, our culture, we don’t do a very good job of postpartum nourishment, Postpartum Support, postpartum anything. There’s no standard of care postpartum, we just tend to push moms and their babes down this mountain is a full roll down the mountain. Good luck, we’ll see you at six weeks, which was probably the appointment right at the bottom. So, you know, part of coming back into life is that grounding, that integration as you step one step at a time back down this mountain, and sometimes it takes women 30 days, sometimes it takes women nine months, you know, there’s no timeline to fully embody your physical body again. But there needs to be a grounding and integration that happens. You know, it’s a slowness, it’s a stillness, it’s soft, and I’m putting my hands on my shoulders like a soft, just firm contact. You know, that’s what I concentrate on in the early postpartum visits at the office. Or if I go do a house call, you know, one of the techniques I learned was closing of the bones, like you want to, like, just really wrapped this mom in a cocoon, and just warm her, because now baby is on the outside, which was a furnace for mom, you know, for so long. And Eastern medicine views, this postpartum state, you know, is almost a cooler state. So we got a warm from the inside out, and just give mom hugs and loving touch every day, and grounding, so that she can start to practice being in her physical body again. So like some practical things would be just, you know, a little bit of just placing your hands like if you don’t have anybody, just placing your hands on yourself, and touching yourself. And all you have to do is like lay your hands on your different parts of your body. And just breathe their breathing is one of the best integration practices, you can do postpartum and breathing into your ribcage, breathing into your lower belly, breathing into your lower back, and actually sending fresh air fresh oxygen, fresh blood flow to that space, and thanking your womb space for like providing so much love and nourishment for your baby. And for you know, just carrying both of y’all through 40 weeks. The other thing I like to do, like you’ll, you’ve seen this exercise, I think is a pat down. So you’re like patting yourself down. This is such a great good energy shift, and then you wipe off the energy. That’s so good. Grounding, like putting your feet on the earth, actually, all of that. So important sunshine, those little grounding practices you can do in the first two weeks, four weeks, 30 days, those are going to be super key. And then if you have luxury of bodywork like chiropractic care, acupuncture, I would do it all but that’s just me. I like I love bodywork. Some people don’t love bodywork at all. But I would do all the chiropractic, I would do all of the acupuncture, I would do all the massage and you want it to be intentional and gentle. Like, you know, one of the things I do in chiropractic is, you know, I don’t do any side posture during the first couple of visits, which is you know, like that sideline, lower back stuff because we’re healing and you know, there’s still a lot of ligament laxity going on that even though we can’t see it, the the body’s healing from the inside out. So integration and grounding is like the two words I wish everybody focused on in that first 30 days postpartum.

Amanda Montalvo 23:44
I love that. And it’s because it is it’s like, especially if you like fitness and movement, like I do, I love it. It’s like one of my favorite ways to take care of myself. I always feel better after and I feel like me, but it’s one of those things where it’s like you also have to honor like where your body’s at, at that time. And I knew like I had no desire to do anything not even going for walks or anything for like at least a month. And so I just didn’t do anything until I wanted to. But I did I love breathwork that’s probably like the one thing that I will always do forever because it’s like the quickest way to calm me down and I also have a history of asthma so I have so much like weird stuff connected to breathing I just know like anxiousness around it. It’s like a lot less now but so it’s funny to me that that’s what calms me down. Now since it’s when I was younger, it was the thing that stressed me out. But that was like the easiest thing to apply postpartum because I could be laying in bed with Eliana my dress, yeah. And breathe. You know, like, I didn’t have to get up and do anything. I could just like, be there. That’s something that you can have access to or even doing, like the movements that you talked about. I don’t think it has to be like this big thing where you know, I’m not gonna have time for it. You don’t need extra time. I feel like it’s the other thing that I really had to wrap my mind around was integrating Eliana into those parts. Instead of trying to do everything when she’s sleeping, I’m like, okay, like, how can I work her into all? Yes. And like you said, my nervous system affects her nervous system. So I just think that’s beautiful advice. And I hope anyone that is going to be in that season soon takes it.

Lindsey Cantu 25:22
Yeah, having baby on your chest to just lie in there doing breath work. Ah, so good, because it’s gonna relax them. Yeah,

Amanda Montalvo 25:31
I will never forget those moments. Well, okay, so let’s so we’ve talked about, like grounding everything. And we’ll get into some of the big questions. But one of the really good questions a lot of people have when I asked like, what postpartum exercise fitness questions Do you guys have? What do you want to know? They were like, What do I look for in the program? Because the I mean, there’s there are different programs out there now. And it’s, it’s kind of it’s similar. I have a lot of people ask about this in general, for like, when you’re not pregnant, and just trying to support your hormones, what do you look for? So in a postpartum program, what would you be looking for?

Lindsey Cantu 26:07
Hmm, that’s such a good question. Because like you said, there’s so many out there now. And I’m grateful that the conversation has evolved over the last decade. Because, you know, when we started, we were definitely the one of the only ones there was, like, you know, two other ones, but definitely missing the mark on a few things. You know, I think, you know, for me, and the way we set up birth, it was, you know, within our postpartum package, which incorporates everything from line into the basics, to the general strength and conditioning training, it follows like, it would take you through five months, you know, so let me start, like, some of the biggest yellow red flags for me are words or phrases that say, like, get your mom BOD back, get your pre baby body back, anything that promotes like, flat abs, like, that’s just, I don’t know, like to not say a bad word, it’s

Amanda Montalvo 27:05
alive for your body, your body’s never going to be the same and it shouldn’t be initially happy.

Lindsey Cantu 27:11
Yes, like you have evolved. This is a new chapter. And while you may, in this moment of time, you may not be as fit as you know, I was Lindsay 2016. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to be you know, a more resilient human, you know, nine months from now, a year and a half from now. You know, the postpartum time, especially like that whole first year, postpartum is such a beautiful time to reset and recalibrate. And we, as women get this opportunity, I’ve seen women that have slowed down and actually done the basics, heal, nagging, hip injuries, heal, lower back stuff, heal things, just because they like, totally slowed her down, reset, went from breath to basics, to building, you know, a solid, general strength conditioning foundation. However, I’ve also seen women go back to the gym at two weeks, bleed it out, pee in their pants, you know, jump back in way too soon. And I guarantee, you know, I’ve seen this way too often, you show up two years, three years later, with the labrum tear, you show up two years later, just totally depleted hormone wise, you know, there’s just so like, the what was the course innate postpartum with Rochelle, she’s an awesome teacher. But one thing she said stuck with me, it’s like, how you care for your body postpartum, will determine the health of you, the woman later on in life, it will have a profound effect on your health from that moment forward. And so if you can just honor that pause, honor that slow down, that’s going to be leaps and bounds. So you know, one of the things that we do is set a foundation and that’s through the birth fit basics. And we do this by utilizing developmental milestones and basic human movements. So if you are looking at a program already starts you with load already has you with volume already has you doing cardio and conditioning? That’s no bueno. I don’t even like doing any kind of conditioning until maybe three months at the earliest postpartum. You know, I don’t even like in the office, I don’t even run bloodwork. I don’t even do thyroid panels, none of that until about three months at the earliest postpartum, because your body’s still regulating itself. It’s figuring itself out. So the last thing I want you to do is go for a run, you know, at six, eight weeks postpartum, you’ve got to have a solid foundation and that comes with the basic human movements and you can find the birth at basics free on YouTube. Like they’re so important. We’re like, we have programs but also if you want to, to experiment for free, just go do them. They’re on YouTube. So I think a foundation is huge. The other thing is, you know, programs that make, like we’re talking about the ones that just lie like false promises, I don’t know what your body’s gonna look like, and six months, I don’t know, how your birth went. What I do know is that every healing timeline is different. And, you know, what we talk about is, it is a mind body soul connection. And we cannot heal our physical body unless we address our mental and emotional body. And so if we’re dealing with prolapse, or a diastasis, that hasn’t healed, it’s not all physical, there’s no one size, one magic exercise that’s going to approximate that dra. If we’re still, you know, maybe dealing with some identity stuff and family relationship dynamics that’s going on. If we’re if prolapse, you know, it’s at the root chakra and sexuality if intimacy, money, stuff hangs out there. So all of its super connected. So I’d like to say like, there’s no one size fits all model. There’s no if some, if there’s a program that promise us like, get your abs back in 30 days, no, like, that’s a lie. And if they don’t start off gradually, like with a foundational setting a foundation, and then building and after we established the foundation, through the birth it basics and breath work. Oh, that’s the other thing, breath, work, breath work, Jesus Lord.

Amanda Montalvo 31:42
Like I did for 30 days, it

Lindsey Cantu 31:44
was great. If there’s a program and they don’t address, breath, just asked for a refund. But after breathwork, after the basics, then we start to get into general strength and conditioning. And that’s a foundation in and of itself for sports specific stuff. So sports specific being CrossFit, sports specific being track and field, being soccer, being Pilates being yoga, being spin, whatever. And in that we work on a lot of asymmetrical stuff, progressive overload. So there’s a progression. It’s not just wham, bam, let’s go run a 5k. You know, I think there’s a gradual increase in load a gradual increase in volume, but you have to have that foundation. And that foundation starts with breath.

Amanda Montalvo 32:39
Hey, Amanda, here, just giving you a quick break, hopefully a break for your brain in the middle of this podcast episode, to remind you that if you haven’t gone through our free training, optimizing hormone health or mineral balance, we really do recommend starting there. And the main reason for that is because you’re going to hear us say things like mineral foundation, having a solid foundation, are you putting the foundations in place, especially what was we get deeper and deeper into different hormonal topics and specific imbalances in the body, the, the mineral foundation is always going to be so essential. So if you haven’t watched the free training, you can find it in our show notes. Or you can go to hormone healing rd.com. And it’s going to be right on that front page there. But we really recommend starting there so you can understand how is your current mineral status? How do you assess this? And how to get started with all that just so you can get as much as you possibly can out of the rest of the podcast episodes. But that’s it. I hope you enjoy the rest of this episode.

Yeah, and I think too, because it’s like, when you breath will automatically incorporate your pelvic floor. Oh, sure. And I think that because it’s, I think if someone’s looking at postpartum programs, and they don’t talk about breath, work, pelvic floor health, like anything like that, I just that would make me like wanna run. And we actually had a question about pelvic floor that I feel like would be perfect timing for now. Someone asked, How do you know if you need to work on pelvic floor muscles, postpartum? Egg everyone does. Do you want to talk about that? And like how that could show up in a program?

Lindsey Cantu 34:19
Yes. So I’m so glad you said breath and pelvic floor because you’re absolutely right. Like, our pelvic floor does not work in isolation. And if you could see me like I’m putting my hands up and the diaphragm and pelvic floor are basically parallel to each other. And when you inhale, everything lowers and expands, expands 360 degrees, your pelvic floor lowers your diaphragm lowers, and then when you exhale on a regular human breath, they all naturally return back to neutral. There’s no sucking up and no, there’s no pulling your belly button to your spine. It’s just like that natural diaphragm breath that’s happening when we start to incorporate you know, a little stability breath as we call it, or task specific intra abdominal pressure, or bracing, or starting to especially postpartum, we’re learning to manage our internal pressure system again, then we have to basically work with that exhale, so we inhale the same, and we try to maintain that expansion that was gained on the inhale, we try to maintain that expansion on sale. And so we do this in the birth of basics without load without increasing volume, just in a safe space, with a dead bug in with our earned range of motion there. But if you think about this, we do this in a neutral spine, in the sagittal plane to start out with, because that’s where babies learn to move. If you learn if you go back to developmental kinesiology, we as humans, no matter where we’re at, in this world, we all learn to move and go through the same milestones, no matter where we’re at, in this world, it’s just innate in us, like, It’s so wild, but we start in that sagittal plane. And if you watch a baby, and they’re doing happy baby, or they’re doing a dead bug type of thing, they’re learning to use their internal pressure system, they’re learning to stabilize with their diaphragm, they’re learning to basically use their breath, to support them use contact with the ground, to manage their internal pressure system. And side note, babies are actually born with diastasis. But as they go, you’ll fit on them like a little code, as they go through their developmental milestones it approximates doesn’t happen overnight. There’s no you know, this magic exercise that approximates it, they have to go through these milestones and start to incorporate these, you know, anatomical slings in different planes of motion, that start to approximate that. So pelvic floor. Oh, man, you know, if, when I started in the birth world, the Kegel was everything, and I’m so glad that people have woken up to Kegel is not the one size fits all, do that do 100 of those a day after birth. And you know, you know, one of the biggest things that I feel like women Miss are relaxation of the pelvic floor. That’s one of the biggest things we concentrate on leading up to labor and birth. And you can do this just by breathing in simple poses and stretches, like Child’s Pose like happy baby, or like the gentle straddle stretch, you know, there’s a great book called the body keeps score, every single experience hangs out in our body unless, you know, we process it. If you see an animal like a dog, and they go through a bath or an experience, they shake it out, like they’re getting it out of their nervous system. And we haven’t really learned to do that in our culture or society. So, you know, we’re talking about coming back down from the mountain, or, you know, with us as women, when we go through minor micro traumas in life, if we’re not able to shake it out, or dance it out or yell it out, then that stuff’s going to hang out in us and pelvic floor notoriously holds a lot of trauma for women. And, you know, one of the things I see with women is just like, just this hunched over almost fetal position. And when I see that, I automatically know their pelvic floor is tight, I know they haven’t breathed into their pelvic bowl, there’s no like, might be a little hollow space that we need to address. So children are not I think everybody needs to address their pelvic floor. And, you know, make sure it’s moving and not just stuck in one position. So huge work on it, like just send some love to your pelvic floor.

Amanda Montalvo 38:50
I love that. So like say like a program, maybe they talk about pelvic floor, but if they only have things to strengthen, like Kegel type things, then also look for like a relaxation, are they are they doing anything to relax? I would say I feel like most people need to relax more than

Lindsey Cantu 39:07
Absolutely not, I would say 90% of women that have urinary incontinence issues. It’s because they have a too tight hypertonic pelvic floor. And so the first thing we do in the office is down regulate their nervous system, relax their pelvic floor. Start from there, we got to unwind and then build back up.

Amanda Montalvo 39:29
I love that. I know that can be hard to grasp especially after birth but it’s like your if especially if you’re like pushing for a long time and maybe you don’t quite I didn’t grasp the like exactly how to push correctly at first it like took me a little bit. So like you’re gonna you’re most likely going to be dealing more with tightness like that was my main issue after they’re over anything. But luckily I knew the breath stuff to like address it. Yeah. Okay, let’s do more questions. This was a really good one. Can you do some light stretching slash EQ Exercise is zero to two weeks postpartum.

Lindsey Cantu 40:04
Totally, I would err on the side of exercises rather than stretching. Remember, they’re still relaxing, hanging out in your joints and tissues. And even though you know, the highest concentration was, you know, right at the end of the third trimester and at birth, if you’re breastfeeding, relax and is going to be hanging out, but I would say gentle exercises, like the birth at basics, like breathing, lower back, just gentle movement, Shin bucks flows, glute bridges, things like that. And, you know, during this time, like no more than five to 10 reps just to get some blood flowing. I think that’s, that’s great.

Amanda Montalvo 40:44
I’m gonna have to like link to your YouTube. I love that you guys have that on there, just because people are gonna like what the shin box? Oh, it’s all on there. Yeah, I’ll link to the YouTube channel for everyone listening. So you can go check it out. And even like, I did your lying in program for 30 days. And it’s like, there is some very light movement, but it’s not really like it’s not an exercise. It’s like breath work. And just like paying attention, like how does it feel? You know? Like, how does it feel when you do this and stuff? Yeah,

Lindsey Cantu 41:13
pelvic tilt posture stuff. segmental cat cows,

Amanda Montalvo 41:19
which is my favorite. I love

Lindsey Cantu 41:21
that movement so much.

Amanda Montalvo 41:23
It’s funny because it felt good at first, but now because my daughter is huge. She’s like, Yeah, me pounds. It’s like, I need to do that every single day. Yeah. Oh, this is a good one. Is there ever a point with sleep deprivation, that working out is contraindicated? Hmm.

Lindsey Cantu 41:39
Yeah. I mean, sleep. Sleep deprivation is something to be mindful of. I’ll share an experience with you. One of my This was actually one of my celebrities in LA. And she was pregnant had her second baby, beautiful home birth experience. And I was going over there once a week afterwards. And you know, you can just tell when somebody is not getting enough sleep, like a new mom life. It comes in chunks. It comes in like, ideally quality chunks. And this mom, you could just tell she wasn’t taking those chunks and wasn’t, you know, sleeping when baby slept or had a little bit anxiety. And I asked her one day, I was like, when’s the last time you actually slept slept? And she said, Well, to be honest, I think it’s been like two to three days. I was like, oh, okay, so what else? What else is going on? Like, how are we feeling? How’s poop? How’s digestion? Are you stressed like, husband wasn’t in town, he had to get late. So it was just her in the the nanny thank God but ended up she had to go on a small dose of anxiety medication. And then she you know, she did that for about a month and came off. But there was, you know, some big signs of postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression going on. So I’m really mindful of sleep postpartum. I think it’s way more important than exercise, especially in the first trimester. You know, there’s a lot going on, like, give yourself permission to nap give your self permission to sleep. But I would say if you are irritated with people, if you know, change, like transitions are hard changes hard, like, even just like running to the store or putting kiddo in the car. If it’s, if it’s like a huge event, a huge obstacle. And you know, you haven’t had quality chunks of sleep, like pay attention to that. Ask for help reach out. I promise you. Exercise can come later, for sure.

Amanda Montalvo 43:39
Yeah, and I feel like I’ve I mean, I slowly started to do stuff. But there was plenty of weeks where I’m like, I just don’t feel like you’re I didn’t get good sleep one night. And I would just skip it. And I mean, I honestly feel like doing less postpartum helped me recover.

Lindsey Cantu 43:55
Like, absolutely. There’s this mantra we like it’s called slowest fast, like, totally embrace that mantra postpartum. Less is more.

Amanda Montalvo 44:04
Yeah. And like, not enough. And I think it’s just like doing something more than nothing. Like if you say like, you are super stressed, and you’re, you didn’t get sleep, but you’re like, I just I don’t really feel like working out but I need to do something it’s like then maybe you go back to some of those basic movements and stretches, you know, it can be hard. I know, if you’re a perfectionist mindset. It’s hard to do that but have a backup plan. That helps. Okay, how can you make sure you strengthen diastasis recti versus make it worse?

Lindsey Cantu 44:33
Hmm. Okay, so we talked a little bit about this already, but anything that is extreme flexion. Like if you’re in the CrossFit world, toast a bar GHD sit ups, regular sit ups, crunches, bicycle crunches, or knees to elbow and yoga. Those kinds of things are going to be like extreme flexion you’re like rounding your back, you’re doing an abdominal sit up crunch situation and those are going to Make the DRA worse, because you’re focusing only on one muscle group. And that is your rectus abdominus, that’s your six pack, washboard abs, if you there in there under there, wherever those like when we only focus on one muscle group, we neglect other planes of motion, we neglect other parts of our body. So, one thing we always say when somebody when a woman becomes pregnant, she’s fully pregnant, she’s in season starting to train for birth, Mind, Body Soul. So we start that shift initially, in the first trimester, like we take out anything like that. And you know, this might be hard if you want to still go to your gym community. And sometimes, you know, when I was coaching in LA, at our gym, we would just say, Oh, she’s nursing the shoulder injury, you know, just, maybe we didn’t want to announce it to the whole gym. Yeah, but good point, those things are going to be very one movement, one exercise focused. Or if you go back to sport specific stuff too soon, that’s going to make a difference. Because maybe you are a thrower or a volleyball player, you are hitting only from one side. That’s like if I’m pulling my sweater, but if we’re pulling the fascia, this way, that’s going to affect everything from the chain, like this diagonal chain is going to affect everything in the anterior the frontal chain, back, it’s going to affect all of it, the fascia has a huge deal, huge, huge influence on our body. The other thing is, it takes we like to say we’re building a strong and dynamic core, one that is like flexible, and one that has strength, not just a rigid core, a washboard abs. And most like most of the time, the washboard abs are actually on the weaker side, a very strong core is one that, you know, maybe you can see some abs, maybe you can’t, but there’s somebody that’s able to have flexibility and strength in all planes of motion, all movement originates from the core. And you need two things. In order to have a strong and dynamic core one, you need that task specific intra abdominal pressure. So you’ve got to be able to manage your own internal pressure system. And that’s going to be different from picking up a 20 pound baby as compared to picking up a 200 pound deadlift, you’re going to use a different amount of pressure there. The other thing you need is all the like spinal muscles, all the intersegmental spinal stabilizers, playing the game working in harmony. And that’s why I say like, this one muscle isolation stuff does nobody any good. Like you don’t walk across the room by just contracting your pelvic floor, you have so many muscles playing the game. There’s, I think this was a study I read recently that like, no matter what’s going on with the diaphragm, the pelvic floor is always doing something like we’re talking about earlier. So you need those two things in order to have a strong and dynamic core. It’s simple, not easy, right? So you need the managing your own internal pressure system, and you need all the muscles playing the game together. So if one muscle is overactive, like rectus abdominus, then what’s the obliques doing? What’s the transverse abdominus doing? How’s the pelvic floor? You know, all of those gotta play the game together.

Amanda Montalvo 48:39
And I think that’s what’s so helpful about the breath work in the beginning is because like, you have to reconnect to your core again, because it feels so different. And especially in like, the first couple months, I feel like it was like the biggest difference. And if you can work on that breath work, and I know, there was even some like working on that pressure and the lying in program and getting used to that again, because you’re like, how do I even engage Mike? Right now, right? It’s yeah, it was weird. But you have to like practice doing those things again.

Lindsey Cantu 49:11
And you have to like practice blowing up candles like, yeah, or, you know, blowing up a little balloon. Little things like that.

Amanda Montalvo 49:18
Yeah, I use the balloon. That’s like that was like my favorite technique for really learning how to do the pelvic floor breathing. Yeah. Okay, this is a interesting one. At what point does your pelvis feel stable for weighted squats postpartum?

Lindsey Cantu 49:32
Well, I would love to give you an answer. There is no one size fits all. You know, as I was saying, Our postpartum package takes you through five months postpartum. And, you know, we update our programs yearly, like they’re always being updated. We ask for feedback all the time. And it’s because we keep taking feedback from moms like actual moms that have done it, like, well, I felt this. And if multiple moms feel certain way, then we’re going to change something. So all of our programs are based on, you know, actual experience, experience of mom’s experience of us as doulas experience of us as doctors therapists in the field. And so we made that timeline based on like the most common timelines, within the postpartum training at the end of the postpartum package, we start to do squats, again, we start to do loaded squats. But I guarantee the ones that we start to do, you know, in that, you know, first first couple of weeks are going to feel completely different than the ones at the end of that five months. And you know, one of the things we love is tempo work. Like paws work, tempo work is so great for your joints, postpartum joints in general, but from everything that I’ve read, and everything that I’ve observed their cultures, tribes around the world that recommend mom’s heal two to three years before having another baby. And that’s, you know, to restore nourishment, minerals, nutrients, connective tissue, based build, bought the body back, you know, but based on what women have said, I, and you, you, you’ll have to come back to me and see if this is true, right around the nine month to 12 month mark is when women are like, Oh, I can squat heavy again, or I can run my race or I feel I feel solid, you know, and that’s doing everything, you know, in, you know, a very intentional manner. Whereas if they start and go to the gym too early, or, you know, do double unders, okay, we’re just gonna jump in and do double unders or running, you know, four weeks, five weeks postpartum, I guarantee there’s some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction that shows up within that first year postpartum. So yeah, nine months to 12 months is kind of that sweet spot window.

Amanda Montalvo 52:04
i That’s really interesting. I’ll let you know. I feel like in the beginning, it’s, it’s not even, like, physically Can I do this, it’s more of like, for me, it’s my my nervous system. Like, there’s just so many changes happening in the beginning. And I, it’s, I’m sure it has to do especially for different women. It’s like, if you are going back to work, it’s like, I remember, I felt great. And then I went back to work and I was like, Oh, okay. You know, like my body and my nervous system were shot we were, it was just such a big change. And like, such a, like, very ugly learning experience that it’s like, I really took a step back. I still did movement and worked out. But I was like, There’s no way I’m even going to attempt to do anything heavy. Even if physically I feel like I could do it because I won’t recover from it. It’s not going to make me feel better. So I it’s I’ve gotten this advice from my other entrepreneur friends that are moms and they’re like, don’t make any important choices about your business about your life until your baby’s nine months old. Yes. So now I’m like, I feel like it’s probably like physical nervous system like mental emotional. So like that. When you said nine months, I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s like it’s for everything. Just nine months.

Lindsey Cantu 53:17
Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Montalvo 53:19
That’s so funny. Okay, this is I did struggle with hemorrhoids. I figured it out. But I’m curious to see your your answer. How can you reduce slash avoid hemorrhoids when getting back into lifting postpartum? Oh,

Lindsey Cantu 53:32
so this is a great question, because hemorrhoids are actually a sign of pelvic floor dysfunction. And not one of my friends, great friends. She deals with them. She is a firefighter. And she’s just an awesome, awesome source. So we go back to breath, we go back to breath, we go back to breath. And there’s a great blog we have I think it’s called I got hemorrhoids tip to heal and provide relief. But one of the things that we do, like I said, go back to diaphragm breathing. And then within the birth fit basics. There’s a post called Hi bear, where the pelvis is above the ribcage and we breathe in that position. That is huge. That like okay, if Hi bears too much for you do tabletop and your pelvis is in alignment with your ribcage. That’s going to be huge. Other things that have provided relief are being mindful of like your new talk about mineral intake a ton like you’ve got to nourish yourself. salt intake is huge. Doing things around the house like incorporating a squatty potty, asking for help like, actually, you know, being mindful of how you pick up baby. The chores you have around the house like the dishes, things like that. Being mindful of that. Getting adjusted is huge and down regulating your nervous system is a big one. And going back to breath You know, I didn’t say this earlier, but you know, I feel like one of the things, one of the things I say is like pregnancy is a great revealer. And it I feel like everything, you know, whether it be, you know, I, I’ve dealt with hemorrhoids or I’ve dealt with asthma or I’ve dealt with anxiety or what I feel like at some point in the motherhood transition, our little Achilles heel is going to rear its head. And we may have two or three Achilles heels, but I feel like it’s gonna rear its head, and it’s gonna say, How are you doing with this lesson? You know, what do you got? I got something for you right now. Yeah, hemorrhoids postpartum. I think, Gosh, what were we looking into with my friend? It’s, I think it is related to the maternal side of healing, you know, making sure being mindful of relationships with mom or grandma or sisters and things like that. And she went and did a ton of work on healing her relationship with her mom. She’s now you know, pregnant with the second one. And it hasn’t been as as intense. It’s actually been great. Yeah. There’s also I would strongly recommend acupuncture for hemorrhoids. There’s an adjustment that I do in the office, that’s like, right on an acupuncture point. And then you know, if you’re seeing an acupuncturist, I think it’s along the lines of like spleen deficiency. So getting in to see an acupuncturist would be super beneficial. Very interesting.

Amanda Montalvo 56:28
I had them pop up at like, around four to five weeks, I had them like in like three weeks, and they went away and they popped up again. I’m like, What the heck. And it was I saw my pelvic floor PT and she was like, I had like, three pretty tight spots. And she was like, this is a it’s a pelvic floor issue. It’s not Yeah, I get it. Like we think it’s like more of a it could be digestion, I think for some, but it’s like that also goes back to why can you not release like from your pelvic floor? Yeah. So breath work was it like literally huge on and just, you know, be if you’re if you start I scaled back on working out a little bit and did breath work and, and I haven’t had issue since but that’s really interesting on the maternal and sister right relationships. Do you have a few more minutes? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Someone asked about reducing back pain postpartum. I don’t know if this person if they always had back pain, or if it just came up, like with pregnancy or what? Okay,

Lindsey Cantu 57:25
so what tends to happen postpartum is because everything just involved our core core shuts down. And now we’re bending over doing these like minor hip hinges, picking up baby putting baby down. So our back takes the brunt of the work. You can start this is where I would say, If your back is bothering you, it’s time to start doing things like the birth it basics, getting adjusted, going back to breathwork. Because your lumbar spine, it’s doing all the work, but it doesn’t have to be doing all the work. And I do see that vary a lot. You know, especially in that like two month to three month mark postpartum. Yeah,

Amanda Montalvo 58:06
I love that. I didn’t deal with that. But I was like, anticipating it because I had such bad back labor. And I was like, I wonder if it’s gonna bother me like forever and it didn’t. But I the women I do know that had back pain. I think it was a movement thing. I really liked this question. Is it a good idea to start strength training postpartum? If you’ve never done any strength training prior to having a baby?

Lindsey Cantu 58:28
Heck yes. And take it slow. Like, yeah, go slow. I get this question all the time. Like, I’ve never done exercise. Can I exercise in my pregnancy? I’ve never done any strength training postpartum. Can I do it? Yes. Hire a smart coach. Join one of our programs. Just don’t do it on your own. Because I think there’s so much that literally, lady just came into the office this week that started strength training because her husband set up a garage gym. She was like, third baby. Okay, I’m ready to get in shape. And like, totally, you know, sprained her back. So, now we’re recut. Yeah. So I think if you do it, do it, set some intention, set some goals, hire somebody, join an online program, have like, the right support in your corner, and it’ll be the best thing you’ve ever done. Honestly,

Amanda Montalvo 59:18
I love that. I’m like, It’s it. It’s accessible. Anyone can do it, you know, just like it doesn’t matter. Your body’s not broken because you had a baby. I think if anything, I’m like, this could be like a good time to start because you kind of have to, you have to go really slowly and you can’t just like, add a bunch of weights and stuff like that. But I was like, I think that’ll be a helpful one for people. Okay, last one. How can you fit in exercise postpartum? Like how do you fit in into your day to day?

Lindsey Cantu 59:48
So you touched on this a little bit earlier by starting to incorporate Eliana into your breathing and your exercises. I think that is key and the moms that figure this out and let go of the perfection of like, this is what my training looked like before, it’s got to look like this now, or like, I need an hour to train, you know, that sort of mindset. Let that go, That ship has sailed. It’s not this, this chapter or this season of life. But if you can start to incorporate baby, you know, in the birth basics, it’s really easy. She, he or she can like lay on the blanket and just stare at you, you can do bird dog over them, they are watching you, they’re watching your movements. So make sure you do your movements correctly, they are picking up those movement patterns. They want to like see mom see what see dad see whoever like do things move and explore. Because that’s how they start to interact with the world, just just through observation. The other thing I would say is like letting go of that perfectionism that I got to do this, this whole training day in an hour, you know, some women will do the birth of basics, and they’ll do like, part of it in the morning and part of it in the afternoon. They’ll break it up throughout the day, maybe do a section in the morning section at lunch section at dinner. Other times, you know, maybe we’re in the the training phase of it the general strength and conditioning part. And there’s that mind body connection piece, maybe they do that first thing in the in the morning, and then they do the little warm up and then they call it good. Okay, maybe the next day, they do the mind body connection piece. And then they do more of the you know, the conditioning piece that shows up. So there’s flexibility in it. And within you know, our programs, we’ve talked it, there’s a chat section we talk if people have questions, you know, we have a monthly support call. But being okay with that flexibility and not being so rigid, rigid in the training department, I think is is a big thing. And just knowing that, you know, you’re never gonna get this time back with your little one. And I know you want to exercise like I love exercise too. But you know, sometimes I’m like, okay, my husband wants me to just like sit down and have dinner or lunch or what be present with him for whatever we’re doing. I can wait, you know, I can do this tomorrow or we can go on a walk later. babywearing walks are awesome. Babies watching you interact with the world. They’re seeing how you take in that stranger or that neighbor or whoever. And they’re learning how to just regulate their systems based on you. So the more flexibility you have the more incorporation of baby, the smoother I think it goes.

Amanda Montalvo 1:02:37
Yeah, and I know it’s like I have friends that all do it different ways. Like I just incorporate Eliana because her naps, I’m like, I’m working like I have to work for that time. So I and then she doesn’t mind being in the garage and working out with me. I wouldn’t do it. Once she’s been up for two hours. You know, I do try to time it. Like, once she’s like woken up, she’s eating, she’s happy. I know, have a solid 30 to 40 minutes. That’s what’s worked for me. I have friends that they’re like, I can’t do it that way. And I just wait to work out until my husband gets home. He takes the baby like that works too. I just don’t mind it. And I’d rather get it done in the morning. So it’s it’s just like, I think experimentation is key and just get rid of your expectations just drop don’t even lower them. Just drop them. Like

Lindsey Cantu 1:03:26
about everything you did before.

Amanda Montalvo 1:03:28
Yeah. And just have fun with it. Like sometimes Eliana gets fussy when I’m working out and I just like I stop and I talk to her and I give her a different toy or something. And she’s fine. And I go back to it, it’s like, but this is where the nervous system part comes in. Because if you can’t handle stuff like that, if that kind of thing is stressing you out a ton, then maybe instead of getting that workout in, you take a nap or do some breath work or go for a walk or something like that, because that should be like a huge red flag. That absolutely was off balance. But and to not like feel bad about that give yourself grace, like this is a huge learning time whether you’ve had a baby already or not. It’s not the same. Every baby is different. And then you have more than one. So that’s a lot. So. But yeah, that would be like my advice. But I love this. I think this is going to be helpful. I hope that people get to listen to this before they give birth so they can have some of this in mind for their postpartum experience. And I just can’t thank you enough for being here in chat. Absolutely.

Lindsey Cantu 1:04:28
Absolutely. Happy to be here and happy to answer any questions. I know. There’s probably some we didn’t get to and some that will come up as people listen to this. So yeah, so

Amanda Montalvo 1:04:39
reach out. Sure to make sure you guys check out Lindsey. She has a few different Instagrams birth fit Instagram is just at birth fit. If you want to follow along with that get information there. If you are wanting to follow more with Lindsay’s chiropractic practice, I’m going to link that one as well and then just her personal Instagram. I will link that one And the show notes too, and the birth fit YouTube so you guys can just start getting familiar with some of these movements that Lindsay was mentioning throughout the episode. And then that hemorrhoids blog, I’ll find it and link it because that I mean, the hemorrhoids are just rough and I get it. It’s like oh, they’re miserable. partum Yeah, just like what’s happening? How is how Am I bleeding on my bike? I just like birth a baby like this? Yeah, I was literally just like, why? But yeah, in Lindsay also has a podcast that I’m gonna link as well. There’s a lot of tons of information. So there’s more than enough free resources. And if you guys need more help, I just finished up just wrapped up my five months of the birth fit postpartum package. And it’s I was like five months is kind of random. But now that I’m here, I’m like, No, it’s not it’s like it’s like perfectly timed and I really am in like a whole different season physically and mentally. So it was perfect. I can’t recommend it enough. And yeah, I think that said so we’ll see you guys next episode.

Lindsey Cantu 1:06:01
Awesome. Thank y’all

Amanda Montalvo 1:06:16
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