Waist Training After Birth: Can and Should You Do It?

Featured Corset: Jolie Beige Cotton Corset

Pregnancy is a magical time when you develop an inner glow, you can eat whatever you want without consequence, and unicorns will approach your outstretched hand and become your best friend. Or you might find yourself battling morning sickness, swollen ankles, and stretch marks, cursing the day you decided to conceive. 

For most women, the experience is somewhere in the middle. Like most things in life, there will be ups and downs, but in the end, you’ll hold a tiny miracle in your arms and feel an overwhelming surge of love like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Then you’ll spend several months bouncing between absolute awe at your beautiful creation and complete desperation from lack of sleep. 

One thing you may struggle with after childbirth is regaining your pre-baby body. Whether you suffer postpartum depression, it’s completely normal to find yourself disheartened by the state of your physique. If you’ve waist-trained before, you might be keen to jump back into waist training after birth. 

While you’ll want to follow the doctor’s recommendations, there’s really no reason why you can’t start or continue waist training after delivery. With a safe and effective regimen in place, you stand to enjoy a range of benefits from donning a corset. 

How Soon Can I Start Waist Training After Birth?

You may be keen to get back in the saddle with waist training immediately after birthing your child, but you really need to give your body a break. You have just created, grown, and expelled an entire (albeit smallish) human being from your body, and it’s going to take some time to heal. 

Most doctors advise waiting at least six weeks after delivery to start exercising again. This gives your body time to heal and adjust to new demands. 

It’s generally recommended to observe this same benchmark for waist training, although it may depend on your particular circumstances. It’s always best to discuss any questions or concerns you may have with your doctor. 

How to Safely Waist Train as a New Mother

In the weeks after delivery, your belly may start to shrink down a bit, although it’s completely normal to have a bit of a pouch following pregnancy. If you’re breastfeeding, your breasts will also be larger than normal (and probably tender), so consider that when it comes to your wardrobe selection. 

The corsets you wore prior to pregnancy may now be too tight, even when you let out the laces. Rather than struggling with too-small corsetry, it’s best to take new measurements and get a corset that fits you right now for your comfort and safety. 

Once you’ve taken the time to season your new corset, your regimen can start with just a couple of hours of wear daily, increasing incrementally every few days, depending on how your body responds. Once you’re wearing it all day comfortably, you can start to incrementally cinch in the waistline, according to a metered schedule.

The caveat here is that you need to pay careful attention to any signals your body sends you. If you feel discomfort, pain, or pressure that you didn’t experience during previous waist training, take a step back and make sure to put your health and safety first. 

Will Waist Training Help Me Lose Weight?

Unfortunately, cinching up a corset will not actually help you lose weight, at least not directly. You’ll need to adopt a healthy diet and exercise regimen for that. However, waist training after birth can indirectly contribute to weight loss in various ways. 

First, it can help you to feel good about your body right now. When you don the right corset, you’ll gain support and compression that contours your waist, camouflages your belly pooch, and lifts your breasts, helping you look and feel your best. These benefits can also help motivate you to continue with activities that lead to weight loss.

Other Benefits of Postpartum Waist Training

Waist training after birth isn’t just for looks. Supportive corsets provide compression that could help combat the effects of muscle laxity in the abdomen, keeping everything in place and minimizing strain around the core of your body. Gentle compression may also help increase blood flow to areas that are healing. 

Waist training can boost confidence, comfort, and motivation when you’re trying to regain your figure and sense of self after childbirth, especially when you proceed safely and effectively and follow recommendations. 

Proper corset practices can increase your comfort and help reduce any anxiety you may have about your figure. In some ways, it’s almost as magical as pregnancy (besides the unicorns, of course).

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