Birthfit Essentials: Seven Pillars to Base Your Pregnancy and Birth Practices

My team and I coach women within the motherhood transition to integrate seven foundational pillars into their lifestyle practices so that they may optimize one’s fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and parenting experiences. The 7 foundational lifestyle practices are sun, sleep, nutrition, fitness, mindset, community, and spirituality. These might sound simple, but continuous practice is not easy. Developing an awareness and a practice within each pillar can be a minimal investment or you can invest as much time, energy, and money as you desire.

Sun

A well-regulated circadian rhythm tells our body what to do and when on a cellular level to achieve energy production. Optimal health cannot be achieved if the sun (outside daylight) is not a priority. Seeing the sunrise and sunset, embracing sun breaks throughout the day, and minimizing artificial light are necessary for optimal reproductive health. Almost half (48%) of our brain responds to light input; therefore, honoring the 24-hour rhythmic cycle that is within us all needs to be top of the list.

Nutrition

The relationship you have with what you put in and on your body matters. This relationship between you and food is much more than an easy this for that trade. The relationship we have with food involves an energy exchange. This is why eating quality meat and fish, in-season produce, and limiting toxins like pesticides is very important. Limit the junk; negative energy you’re putting in your body. And yes, animal products are of our highest priority throughout the motherhood transition as they contain a legit source of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals, necessary for building a baby and an organ and recovering.

Sleep

Quality sleep and routines around sleep are the name of the game. Sleep is where health, growth, and restoration happens. Sleep is where we cultivate/harvest melatonin. And as women stepping into motherhood, we need to have an amazing relationship with this neurotransmitter as it works synergistically with oxytocin. Oxytocin and melatonin work together to make stronger, more powerful contractions for the uterus. Melatonin needs sunlight to optimize production.

Fitness

Fitness is the gateway to trusting your body again. Showing up for a class or in your garage gym or with a group in a park consistently builds trust and confidence in YOU. We believe that movement is a conversation with our bodies and our environment. However, some of us have stopped moving, halted energy shifts, and have stored micro and macro trauma in our bodies. Movement is absolutely necessary for the completion of nervous system cycles and experiences. In a familiar environment such as a gym, movement gives us the opportunity to explore the range of our nervous system. As chiropractors, I think we could agree that birth is a neurophysiological process that requires an optimal neurophysiological pathway. And to optimize both the pathway and the process for our passenger(s), we need to be conscious of movement. This is exactly why I created BIRTHFIT in 2013, as I wanted intentional general strength and conditioning programs that prepared the woman within her current season of life. Birth requires movement. It’s a dance between mom and baby. We train so that we can dance with our husbands in the preconception chapter, carrying the milk jugs and a growing belly in pregnancy, get in a table top or lunge position to breathe our baby earth side, and to wear or carry our baby the first year and beyond.

Mindset

We employ a RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY mindset. God gives us free will so we have the power to choose. Even if the choice is to extend one’s exhales or not. We choose to embrace ownership in our actions and consequences. Note: This does not excuse anyone’s lame behavior. Radical responsibility starts long before birth. Cultivating practices within these foundational pillars starts long before birth. With the radical responsibility lens on, we then wear two additional characteristics: the ability to surrender and the ability to adapt. When we see the fork in the road, we make the choice with the current resources we have available, and then we jump in the flowing river and send it. When we have the opportunity for reflection, we review and make choices. This is where we adapt. We utilize a radical responsibility mindset with a supporting role of a growth mindset throughout each of our life’s journeys.

Community

This is your environment and the people in your immediate community. The ones you see on the regular will make up your environment. You cannot heal or expand in the environment that made you sick. Your wellness team, your birth team, and your postpartum healing team need to have very similar values and beliefs as you do. If you desire a natural physiologic birth, make sure everyone on your birth team TRUSTS BIRTH. If you’re a chiropractor that runs a wellness practice, make sure you trust birth. When we all start to trust birth a little more, I feel like God will breathe a sigh of relief.

Spirituality

There is an innate intelligence within us all. At BIRTHFIT, we call this innate intelligence God and Natural Law. You may call it something else, but we can agree that the power is bigger than us. God has a blueprint for us. There is a Natural Law design already out there (what would happen if we uninterrupted). When we follow it and honor it, then we thrive. When we stray, we get subluxated or dis-ease.

We birth how we live. This means how we have lived up until that moment in time where everything culminates. Our map of the world, our physical fitness, our daily habits, and our faith all influence our experiences within the motherhood transition, especially birth.

We keep it simple. These seven foundational pillars need to be part of basic human operations. We excel at the basics. Anyone can benefit from the basics, and when we think we’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to start over.

In 2023, after 10 years of BIRTHFIT, I was able to take all of BIRTHFIT (my learnings, downloads, experiences, etc.) and put it into action. I got pregnant naturally and gave birth to our baby girl at 40 years young. The pregnancy felt wild and free with a lot of time spent in nature and only a handful of prenatal visits. My birth was intense and blissful on our back porch under a dark night sky. And my fourth trimester was slow and warm so that my nervous system could integrate and my body could heal.

Let your journey change you. The BIRTHFIT foundational pillars and movement basics gave me the freedom to have the conception, pregnancy, and postpartum chapters that I desired and needed.