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Are you preparing for the birth you want to have? Or are you going to be a bystander to your birth?
You deserve to birth the way you want to birth.
Maybe you’re in a tub in a birthing center.
Maybe you’re resting in a hospital bed while the pitocin and epidural do their thing.
Maybe it’s squatting in a field near a babbling brook while a fawn nurses its mother nearby.
Whatever your goal is, I support it and I’m here to get you there in a way that will minimize time, tearing, and trauma.
I’m Katie of Body in Motion Pilates - some of you have known me for years and some of you are only just hearing from me…so hello!
I am a movement doula. I use exercise and intuitive movement to bring balance to your pregnant and newly postpartum body, so you can start feeling confident in yourself. Because I believe a confident woman creates a confident mother.
But I wasn’t always this way. Maybe you were like me - cautious, a planner, fastidious. I thought that with enough “book learning,” I could become confident.
I’ve been a performer all my life;
ballet dancer
flute player
marching band drum major
You’d think with all those experiences on stage, that I was a confident kid, but actually, the opposite was true. When the barrier between myself and the audience was gone (AKA real life), I was painfully shy, cautious, and unsure of myself. I tried to combat that insecurity with knowledge, figuring that if I knew the right answers, the confidence would follow.
But that was just another way of outsourcing my confidence, another way of being on stage.
Then at 31, I became pregnant for the first time and I learned that all the knowledge in the world couldn’t fully prepare me for birth. I was physically strong from years of ballet and Pilates so I handed my agency over to my OBs, assuming they would get me to the “birth destination” I wanted.
Again, I was playing cautious and outsourcing my confidence.
I assumed my doctors knew best, and kept my worries to myself:
What if my baby is breech?
What if my pelvis is too small?
What if I can’t handle the pain?
Most importantly…
How was I going to get the birth I wanted?
I knew I wanted to be an active participant in my birth - I didn’t want it to just “happen” to me. What was a mom-to-be to do?
For the first time in my life, I was asking my body to do something I didn’t know how to prepare for.
So I did what I always do when facing the unknown - I hit the books…and the podcasts and the internet.
And about pregnancy and birth, I found the same things over and over again:
As pregnancy progresses, we must modify movement so the pregnant body can handle it.
When in labor, your intuition will take over and your body will know what to do.
Um, what?
I was not satisfied with either of those statements. What if your intuition told your body to do something it couldn’t physically do?
I didn’t know it then, but there was so much I could have been doing to proactively prepare my body - things my doctors never mentioned.
Your body’s strengths and weaknesses, balances and imbalances, are the result of each and every movement choice you make every day. And I’m gonna take a guess and say your tired, pregnant butt is sitting… a lot. (No shade. I know because I’ve been there - twice.)
Check out the video below to see why all that sitting may be working against your birth goals.
I know what you're thinking:
“Yes Katie. My tired, pregnant butt is sitting (and napping) a lot. There’s no way I’ll have the energy to add in an exercise program.”
I hear you - and I’m not asking you to give up those naps. I’m telling you that with the addition of daily, short, purposeful movement, you will probably need LESS of them.
“But everything hurts. Even if it’s just walking, whenever I try to exercise, I have to modify so much to keep my pubic bone from feeling like it’s being ripped apart. I barely feel like I’m even exercising!”
What if I told you that instead of giving you modifications for your exercises, together we figured out how to keep it from hurting in the first place? When we work together, I don’t just give out band-aids for pregnancy discomforts. We get to the root cause.
“Ehh, I’ll just walk more. I heard that’s good for pregnancy.”
Yes, but are you walking correctly?
Good news is, one of the easiest (and cheapest!) ways to prepare your body for birth is walking. It helps create optimal pelvic floor “bounce”, it boosts your mood and energy, and brings balance and suppleness to the muscles of the pelvis and hip.
But as pregnancy progresses, you may find yourself waddling (or “washing machine…ing”) instead of walking. Make sure you’re getting the most out of your walking.
If you found yourself waddling instead of walking, come back here in 2 days. I’ve got a class to help improve the root cause!
A comfortable pregnancy and an easy birth aren’t matters of luck. While we can’t control everything, there is still a lot we can do to stack the cards in your favor.
When I look back at photos of me 42 (yes, 42) weeks pregnant with my first, I can SEE the type of birth that was waiting for me. The imbalances are so obvious to me now, but NO ONE (not my OB, not my Pilates teacher, not my L & D nurses) said a thing about it, much less offered me exercises or releases to address the issue. *Sigh* If only 2016 Katie had 2022 Katie by her side!
When you sign up for Core Before: A 6-week exercise + education experience, you GET 2022 Katie - lucky mama! Enrollment is opening in 3 days.
Any "ah ha" moments? Got more questions? Leave a comment below!