Aprivé Wellness Blog
The Best Health and Wellness Products - Pregnancy Wellness
The world of wellness can feel confusing! So I’ve started a new blog series with my top picks of the best health and wellness products and practices that really work. I’m not paid to promote any of these products, and if I mention any products I’ve been gifted, it’s because I truly believe in them!
This month’s theme is pre natal wellness products and practices. Here are my top picks of things that impact body, mind and health during pregnancy.(always get clearance from your medical professional before altering your diet or exercising when pregnant)
Prenatal Wellness Products & Practices
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Prenatal Wellness Products & Practices 〰️
Prenatal Exercise Apps: Universal Practice and EMP
As a Physiotherapist, I’m a huge believer in empower pregnant women to move and feel good in a safe way. So I love apps that use trained professionals who understand the biomechanical, hormonal and emotional changes pregnant women are experiencing, and tailor programs for them. Try my Prenatal Youtube video further down this post.
I personally used the Universal Practice app which was created by the Melbourne-based physio & Pilates clinic with the same name. The workouts are hard enough to feel tired, but they’re doable on those days you’re feeling exhausted in the last trimester. 15 minutes seems manageable, right?
I only used the EMP app during my postnatal recovery, but I know their prenatal vids are great as I’ve watched them too. It’s created by a Women’s Physiotherapist Lyz Evans and Women’s Health trained personal trainer Kimmy Smith, so they really know their stuff. Best of all they cater to those women experiencing pelvic girdle pain and all the other great symptoms you can encounter during pregnancy.
A pic from the EMP app
In-Person Pregnancy Pilates Where Possible
The apps I mentioned above are amazing to do workouts at home a few days a week, but I found an in-person pregnancy Pilates class amazing. The trained physio can answer questions, you can meet other Mums, and you can get moving while being supervised. This is great for those days when you feel like you just want to go to bed and sleep, as your body always feels better afterwards. One day I felt so tired, but I just did the gentle movements and my ribs, middle back and neck felt a million per cent after the class. I did mine with Celia at Elevate in Nelson, NZ. Look for a class taught by a qualified Women’s/Pelvic Physiotherapist.
2. Pregnancy Supplements
Classic Elevit was my go-to for prenatal vitamins until you’re able to stop taking the folic acid, which is when I started taking the other supplements my midwife recommended.
I found prenatal iron supplements made my digestion so sluggish and uncomfortable, so I found a better alternative: Solgar gentle iron. This is a good one if you’re vegan too.
3. Prenatal Nutrition
There are endless books you can read about prenatal nutrition, but I just kept it really simple and tried to eat really well, plus added a few hacks. I didn’t get any morning sickness so if you do, this recipe may not work for you!
Kiwi to help with stuck digestion
Having a huge bowling ball in your abdomen can make you feel constipated and awful, which is bad for your pelvic floor and adds to the discomfort of pregnancy. So! Instead of taking a laxative as I wanted to keep things as natural as possible, I found kiwi was the answer. You can add a skinned, sliced kiwi to morning smoothies, or buy Kiwi crush frozen puree and add it to water for a quick morning fix. Avoid kiwi juices unless you can get 100% kiwi, as most of them contain mostly apple juice with a bit of kiwi which won’t have the same ‘movement’ effect.
Smoothies helped me get my fruit and veg
Pregnant or not, I find smoothies the easiest way to get a huge dose of fruit and veggies. My favourite recipe is and was:
1 x peeled and sliced kiwi (or a sachet or kiwicrush)
1 x peeled frozen banana (to use up those yucky black bananas)
1 x tbsp. plain, unsweetened yoghurt
1 x handful baby spinach or 2 leaves silverbeet with stem removed
1/2 cup frozen berries
1 tsp chia seeds
1 tsp psyllium husks
4. Prenatal Mental Health
Being pregnant and contemplating your new life with a baby can be incredibly daunting. Despite this huge upcoming change, most of the focus in antenatal groups is around postnatal mental health, but anxiety and feeling low can hit just as hard during pregnancy. Luckily, there are good mental health services in Australia and New Zealand (and hopefully in your country) called peri-natal anxiety and depression services. Peri-natal covers both pre and post natal, so you can get help when you’re pregnant and after you give birth.
In Australia, the service is called PANDA, and in NZ it’s PADA.
I definitely had my moments of feeling anxious. I sought help and saw a great counsellor I found through the perinatal network. It really helped to talk to someone with experience in this specific area and one session made all the difference for me!
Pregnancy Meditation apps
I also did a free trial of the Headspace pregnancy series during my pregnancy. I preferred to do my own unguided meditation as that’s what I’m used to, but I think this offering from Headspace would suit those new to meditation or looking for guidance. We know the huge benefits meditation and breathing can have on mindset, so I definitely think adding some meditation into your prenatal regime is a great idea where you can.
5. Activewear for Pregnancy
As a Physiotherapist and Pilates instructor, I’m always in activewear, so I tried all the best options so you don’t have to. Here are my top picks:
Best maternity leggings for comfort: Active Truth
Best pregnancy leggings that double as going out pants: Pea in a Pod Maternity Ponte Pants
Best pregnancy leggings if you like shine: SRC (These have a thick band on the waist which dug into my ribs at the end, but the fabric is very comfy. I do think Active truth are a better buy)
Best online store for different maternity activewear: The Iconic
Best maternity jeans (not activewear but important!) Ripe
I found using stomach Tubigrip over my leggings in the third trimester during hill walks really helped ease that feeling of heaviness too. Your midwife can provide some free, just ask for it at your next appointment!
Here’s a prenatal workout I did in my third trimester wearing my Active Truth leggings
6. Prenatal Podcasts & Reading - Birth Stories
If you’re pregnant and feeling nervous about birth, that’s completely normal! We all do as I’ve mentioned. I wasn’t too big on listening to other people’s stories as I wanted to focus on my own, but lots of women I know love the Australian Birth Stories podcast as a source of real birth stories you can listen to.
I also read a birth stories book which helped me feel more comfortable about birth, and interestingly I went into labour the night after reading it for hours (3 days before my due date) I can’t help but wonder if relaxing about the process helped get things moving!
Other Prenatal Wellness Things I loved
Pregnancy massage from an accredited professional - Makes you feel amazing!
So there you have it! My products and practices for prenatal wellbeing.
What prenatal wellbeing products and practices have you tried?
Goal Setting Template - It's Not Too Late to Set Goals For The Rest of 2021
Click on the image below to get your free copy of a goal-setting style that’s 75% more effective than general goal setting. Cool right?
Pregnancy Workout Plan Tips
Pregnancy workouts come in every shape and size, so I put together my top 5 tips I have found have helped me during my pregnancy. They cover everything from strength to posture and are handy additions to any pregnancy workout. As a physiotherapist, I’ve worked with plenty of women during their pregnancies, but going through it has given me so much more insight into how it actually feels to work out while pregnant. Some days it’s really hard to get motivated, but even 5 minutes can help you feel good. Plus, on days when I’ve been really exhausted, a quick workout has helped give me energy!
Note: Always check with your health practitioner that exercise is safe for you during pregnancy.
Benefits of Exercise During Pregnancy
As a physiotherapist, what I recommend needs to have an evidence-base. So let’s take a look at the handy benefits of pregnancy workouts. Other than being great for your general well being, staying fit while pregnant is also proven to:
Improve your muscular strength and endurance
Improve your cardiovascular function and physical fitness
Decrease your risk of pregnancy related complications such as pregnancy-induced hypertension and pre-eclampsia
Reduce your incidence of back and pelvic pain
Reduce your fatigue, stress, anxiety and depression
Decrease excessive gestational weight gain and post-partum weight retention
Reduce the incidence of delivery complications in women who are active during pregnancy
Prevent and management of urinary incontinence
Gone are the days when women were told not to exercise during pregnancy (unless there are medical reasons of course) Luckily, now we’re encouraged to stay moving and active to help boost maternal and your baby’s health. Let’s face it though, squeezing into your pre-pregnancy tights doesn’t work. Luckily I’ve found the comfiest options for you!
Best Activewear for Pregnancy
Thanks to Active Truth Maternity, I was able to trial their Mama 7/8th Length Pregnancy Tights in grey and black, plus matching crops. As a physio, I work in active wear full time, and after 15 weeks I was finding the waistbands of my pre-pregnancy tights too uncomfortable on my tummy. So Active Truth came to the rescue and I wore their tights almost everyday.
See more on the @activetruthmaternity Instagram: www.instagram.com/activetruthmaternity
I love that they don’t fall down, they have a really comfy and long tummy band for comfort, they fit really well, and they’re thick so you don’t need to worry about awkward see-through moments doing child’s pose. The crops are great too, especially in the last trimester when I’ve been told not to wear underwire to protect milk ducts! The only downside to the active truth tights is they’re not very breathable, but like most active wear, this just means you shouldn’t wear then 24/7, and wear natural fibres like cotton in your downtime.
So! Check out the GIFS below with my favourite antenatal workout moves in my Active Truth Maternity tights!
Pregnancy Core Exercise: The Hover
This handy exercise works your core without stretching it, helping create stability through your torso, pelvis and engaging your pelvic floor. Plus, it’s great for postural muscle strength you’ll need for constant lifting, breastfeeding and carrying your little one. Here’s how:
Kneel on hands and knees, shoulders over hands, knees under hips
Press the ground away so your head lifts up and away from the ground
Keep your eye gaze straight down between your hands (don’t look up)
Engage your core, lift your pelvic floor then float the knees one inch off the ground
5 x 10 second holds
Tip: Look down at your bump and if you see a ‘tenting’ or Toblerone shape down the centre of your tummy, your abs are working too hard. This means your abs aren’t ready for this exercise.
2. Watch Your Posture
Posture matters during pregnancy, as back and neck pain can worsen if you’re not sitting and standing well. With extra weight pulling your lower back into a sway position, plus your heavier chest pulling your downwards, kneeling in poor posture for your workout can get sore. Don’t let gravity win! Engage your deep postural muscles like your transversus and shoulder girdle muscles and lift up and away from the ground when you’re in kneeling. Strong postural muscles can help:
Decrease back and neck pain during pregnancy
Decrease back and neck pain after birth
Decrease your risk of developing neck soreness and headaches during breastfeeding and lifting.
In the gif below, I demonstrate what ‘not to do’ by collapsing towards the ground. Prevent this by pressing that ground away!
3. Glute Exercises During Pregnancy
The clam is one of my favourite glute exercises during pregnancy. It’s a Pilates exercise that works the glute max and medius to help with pelvic stability; an important part of pregnancy when your pelvis is so much more mobile! Here’s how:
Lie on your side and cradle the head on the arm
Roll far forward so your top elbow is on the ground and your top hip rolls forward
Tuck the top toe behind the bottom knee and open the top knee without rolling your hip backwards
Lift your waist up from underneath. Pretend you’re making room for a little mouse to pass through.
2 x 20
4. Squats During Pregnancy
Squats can feel tough when you’re in your third trimester when your bump gets big. I’m 34 weeks pregnant in this gif. and my belly really does get in the way. So I turned my hips out slightly and added a band to help activate my glutes. Remember to keep shoulders soft, knees bending over toes (no knock knees) and tuck your tailbone under instead of sticking your bottom out. This helps the glutes ‘switch on.’
See how many you can do in 1 minute!
5. Side Planks During Pregnancy
If you’re feeling strong and well, and you’ve done side planks before pregnancy, you can try side planks during pregnancy. They’re a great way to improve shoulder strength, glute strength and core. If you’re feeling really strong, you can lift the top leg. Here’s how:
Ensure your bottom elbow is right underneath the lower shoulder
Extend the top arm to help you feel like you’re lifting up more
Keep the top hip forwards
Don’t let yourself collapse onto the bottom arm, press the ground away through the elbow and lift up up up!
3 x 10s hold each side
Pelvic Floor Exercises During Pregnancy
Don’t forget these handy exercises to increase the strength, endurance and activation of these special muscles. From fast lifts to long holds, change up the way you engage your pelvic floor. If you’re not sure if you’re doing it right, see a pelvic floor physio. They’re amazing at what they can check and teach you!
Pregnancy Exercises at Home
Pregnancy workouts at home might be the easiest way to help you stay well during pregnancy. Whether you’re exhausted during your first trimester and struggling for motivation, or you’re in your third trimester and juggling work with the exhaustion of late pregnancy, or in lockdown or quarantine, at-home workouts are easily accessible. Even 10 minutes count! Research shows working out when you’re exhausted can boost energy levels actually helping you feel brighter.
Try My Full 40 Minute Prenatal Pilates Workout Below
How to Add Wellness to Your Resort
Offering wellness to your customers has never been more important. Across countless industries from food retailers to luxury hotels, wellness programs and wellness products are no longer optional. Here’s everything you need to know about adding wellness to your brand.
Everyone wants more wellness in 2021
It’s been an extremely difficult year this year, and the threat to human health has led to an increase in the individual and global search to be well. Never in most of our lifetimes has there been such a focus on health at such a large scale. While wellness has been a trend for years, now it’s personal. Customers of the luxury sector through to daily food chains are demanding brands consider their wellbeing.
An Ogilvy global survey of 7,000 consumers in 14 countries found:
77% of people say wellness is very or extremely important to them.
80% want to improve their wellness.
Only 46% feel that brands prioritise their wellness; the number is 41% for the food sector and 53% for skin-care brands.
67% say there should be more wellness options, regardless of what they’re shopping for; more than 50% expect car, banking, airline and snack-food brands to offer wellness options.
59% agree it’s worth paying more for wellness options.
73% say all brands need a wellness strategy as part of their core mission.
As the results above demonstrate, showing your customers you care about their health, both mental health and physical health, is imperative in today’s world. Before 2020, genuine workplace wellness programs were rarely implemented and wellness products were restricted to the health and wellness industry. But no more.
With social media ever-present now, wellness offers have to be authentic and meaningful.
Wellness is more than healthy food and spa treatments
Many brands have started wellness programs in the past 12 months to cater to the demands of both their customers and employees. This has come in the form of wellness to support mental health, employee health or even by adding wellness to an existing brand offering. When these offerings are done in a meaningful way, these brands should be applauded.
However, some brands think providing spa treatments and a few menu items with healthy food serve as wellness programs or products. But they don’t.
The new consumer wants to know their health is a priority, not a second thought.
If you wish to offer wellness experiences and treatments, they need to have a human-centred goal behind them. That can be lightness and laughter, building connection, creating calm, boosting immunity or even creating a moment of wonder and awe which is shown to boost well being too. Regardless of what you wish to offer, it needs to have a clear goal that shows insight into your unique customer base.
Luxury brands need to focus on these goals when offering luxury wellness too, as an opulent spa no longer qualifies a hotel as a luxury wellness retreat. The world’s top wellness retreats have known this for years, but now the rest of the world is taking note.
All industries can offer wellness products
Wellness isn’t reserved for retreats, yoga studios and healthy food chains either. Any industry can get involved; It’s about catering to real people and their needs to have their health prioritised.
Whether you’re a hotel chain looking to add wellness retreats, a medical clinic looking to add fitness classes, or a ferry company looking to offer healthier, locally sourced food options, there are simple ways you can help your customers feel like you value their well being. It all starts with that human-centred goal to make the product meaningful to your customers.
What makes a wellness product meaningful?
Considering your customers in a holistic way can help create a meaningful wellness product. One of the easiest, most tangible ways to do this is to consider Maslow’s pyramid of needs.
The pyramid is as follows: Physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation. Once the initial two needs have been met, wellness can attempt to address the last three: Love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation.
Belonging
After a year of isolation, quarantine, lack of touch and loss of community for many, many people are craving a sense of belonging. Brands, luxury hotels and wellness retreats can all help create this with meaningful, in-person events and community initiatives.
Esteem
Building a customer’s esteem is well within the reach of wellness products. Whether your customer’s goal is weight loss, detox, boosting their health or just trying yoga for the first time, esteem-building is crucial.
There are countless elements that influence building self-esteem, from everything from staff interactions to the user experience of digital fitness tools and trackers.
Self-actualisation
Self-actualisation is an important part of any meaningful wellness initiative and a pillar of any world-class wellness resort.
In fact, helping a customer live their best life is the key goal of any wellness brand, product or wellness retreat.
Whether this is done through a philosophical, spiritual or scientific lens, self-actualisation is the reason customers will rave about your wellness product and keep coming back.
How to add wellness to your hotel or brand
Creating an authentic, relatable and meaningful wellness product in 2021 means thinking beyond the old ideas. While holistic treatments, yoga and daily wellness programs are great, they’re not enough.
New customers want to know brands have considered their wellness, which includes everything from saving them time to decreasing stress levels, boosting immunity and building connection.
While it sounds like a mammoth task to weave all these elements into a product, it can be done. From luxury wellness through to wellness programs and initiatives; authentic, personalised products are key.
Adding wellness to your brand
As a health professional and wellness consultant, I have the unique, ongoing opportunity to watch which wellness strategies work, and which don’t resonate with real people in real settings. I’m so grateful to have worked with some of the world’s best wellness resorts and brands from retreats to hotels fitness brands, and I love to help brands offering meaningful luxury wellness programs and products to their customers.
If you’re looking to add wellness to your brand but you’re not sure how to start, contact me now.
Brand I’ve Worked With:
Liv Nordic & Viking Cruises
Six Senses, Worldwide
Chiva Som, Thailand
Ananda, India
Current Wellness Product Creation for 2 brands: Names protected by NDA.
Get in touch now!
Pilates Moves To Master Now
Pilates is for everyone of all ages - yep that means you too boys! Pilates is a really great way to enhance your posture, tone up and work your core. Here are the top Pilates moves you need to try now!
Scissors - Great for deep core activation
This exercise is a good core workout, plus it works to strengthen the deep neck flexors to improve your posture!
Lie on your back and float your legs up to tabletop
Tap one toe to the ground, then lift it back up
Tap the other toe to the ground
For more of a challenge, tap the toe further away from you
2 x 12
2. Walking Plank - Great for improving your posture
Planks can get a bit static, so make yours a walking plank!
From your hands and knees, press up into a hover lifting your knees 1 inch up off the ground
Press the ground away and lift your head and neck away from the ground
Step your legs back to a plank one by one
Then step back to your hover. Resist the urge to hang your head, this is how you improve your head and neck posture!
Try 2 sets of 5 steps. You got this!
3. Ab Roll Up - A great ab workout
This one is tough!
Lie on your back with your arms out long and your legs stretched out
Float your hands up above your face
Use your abs to roll you all the way up to sitting
Try to keep your shoulders relaxed and away from your ears! You can do it!
Try 5 roll ups.
4. Book Openings - Relieves stiffness in the middle back
If you get tight in the thoracic spine (middle back) you’re not alone. Sitting all day at a computer creates so much stiffness in the middle back. The best remedy is a gentle rotation.
Lie on your side and glute your knees together
Put your hands on top of each other (like a crocodile mouth) and open one arm all the way out, then back in.
If you feel any pins and needles in your hands, bend your elbow and open with the elbow instead of a straight arm.
1 set of 8 on each side.
5. Pelvic Tilts - Great to release stiffness in the lower back
Lie on your back and plant your feet hip-width apart
Imagine you have flashlights on your pelvic bones and roll your pelvis forwards and backwards
You’ll feel your pelvis rolling which also mobilises the joints in your lumbar spine
2 x 5 slowly
Wanna try a Pilates class for Free? Check out my Youtube channel! It’s full of free classes covering everything from how to improve your posture to how to strengthen your glutes.
3 Wellness Tips For Isolation and Lockdown When You've Lost Motivation
If you've lost your usual motivation during lockdown and quarantine, that's OK.
With so many people sharing their new workouts and run times, it can feel like you're the only one who's feeling flat. But you're not!
Most people are just trying to get through each day stuck at home, let alone achieve new goals. Here are a few healthy moves you can make even when you're feeling stuck in a rut.