Body Mechanics for Doulas: Preventing Injury, Increasing Strength, and Improving Your Recovery Time
What’s the big deal about body mechanics and why should doulas know about this?
Hey, DoulaSis - as an experienced - vintage? old gal? been-here-done-this-awhile - doula, one thing I have learned is that if I want to keep providing doula care at the level that I expect of myself…I have to take care of my physical body and my mind. That’s why I created Fit4Doula™. It’s a membership just for you and me.
Let’s take a look at 3 areas that I have found to be so important:
Injury Prevention Strategies on the job,
Strengthening for our bodies for those hours of double hip squeezes or holding legs for pushing (whose neck, shoulders and back hurt just from reading that!!)
Improving Our Recovery Time so that we can go back at it in tip-top shape for the next birth or postpartum client!
Injury Prevention Strategies starts with Body Mechanics
Why is this so important? Our bodies are meant to move in all ways and directions, but our bodies also need support during loading. (Load refers to any force placed on an object.) Think of supporting a client in a Dangle or walking all hours of the night with that newborn baby. In doula work, we LOAD our bodies. Constantly. And often, at really odd angles, right?!
How many times have you really ached after a long birth or after hours of holding a fussy baby? One of the leading complaints of Doulas is neck and back pain. Is it any wonder?
One of the ways that I protect my body while supporting a client in labor is by using Neutral Posture in any position I am in: standing up when supporting a slow dance position, leaning over a tub to reach lower backs, even kneeling for knee counter pressure comfort measures.
Watch the video and try finding Neutral Position. Every human body is built differently so your neutral posture might look different to mine but the principles are the same. When you breathe, are you able to connect to your deep core abdominal muscles and pelvic floor? That is the secret to structurally supporting your core during load. (By the way, we teach this very same thing in Postpartum Recovery® to our postpartum participants as they reconnect and support their Diastasis Recti after birth.)
Get Strong! DoulaSis!
You should be physically and mentally TRAINING for your job. I don’t meant that you have to join a CrossFit gym but you should do some sort of regular exercise. And, you don’t need a lot of gym equipment, either. In fact, you can do complete body workout with just your body weight. Or, you can use my affiliate link for a $9 theraband pack or an $9 pack of band loops and you can kick your own butt and I guarantee a sweat! This and our birth balls are all we use in our Fit4Doula workout sessions. Some doulas use dumbbells, too, but they are not necessary to own. We also use our birth balls, cuz every doula should have one of those laying around their house!! And just like we teach our clients, sitting on the birth ball fires our core muscles and our balance center of our brain to stabilize our bodies. Add in upper body exercises like a banded chest press while reclined on the birth ball, and it becomes a workout!!
What’s your favorite way to recover from a long birth?
My Physical Recovery:
Epsom Salt bath, hydrate, sleep and STRETCH. Try this stretch session out and I bet you’ll feel so much better for it! Sometimes, I will even do a variation of this in the recovery room after a long labor that turned into a cesarean birth while waiting for my client to return. It’s a total physical and mental reset.
My Mental Recovery:
I am a huge believer in MINDSET practice. Not in a Woo-woo way but I know that when I look on bright side, or look for the good, or think positively, it just changes my whole perspective! I also know that I have a choice in my perspective and there is power in that. Power to change my attitude which affects my physical body.
We talk a lot of Mindset shifts in Fit4Doula. And this plays into recovery from those long births. We pour ourselves into our work and these labors and births can be an emotional challenge for us and we often debrief these births after our workouts. Make sure to find a doula friend that you can trust to talk out those hard births. Look for the ways in which you excelled and the ways that you can improve on. But be gentle and always find the good. It will truly help you recover faster so that you are ready for your next birth.
Try this Labor Room stretch during a long labor. It will feel soooooo good!
I want to invite you to try out Fit4Doula. It’s been a game changer for our members.
“I look forward to our time together every week and I am feeling stronger already. ”