The “Postpartum Bounce Back” is a LIE

Finally, a study has revealed what most moms already know—the postpartum bounce back is a myth. The women we see on social media, killing it in their running, featuring pre-pregnancy looking bodies isn’t the norm—far from it.

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It’s validating that this massive study of thousands of women shows that what we have been feeling is normal—that it can take a year or more to feel like our old selves again. It counters the idea that our bodies are back to normal six weeks postpartum—implied by the postpartum check-up at the six-week mark and blanket ok to return to running postpartum.

In a recent Miles with Moms podcast episode, my co-hosts and I discussed when we felt “normal” again postpartum. And all of us said it was around the year mark that we began to feel normal running postpartum and in our bodies.

On the podcast, I shared that I felt like my pelvis was ripping apart when I started running after having a baby. My body just felt wonky and uncoordinated. I also battled fatigue and later battled postpartum depression and anxiety – all brought on by whacked out hormone levels.

On top of my body feeling weird when I was running, I felt very anxious leaving the house to run. My kids wouldn’t take the bottle and so I was worried they would start crying, wanting to breastfeed. That did happen a lot and made my runs feel like the opposite on an escape. Neither of my babies were good sleepers, so adding insult to injury (aka postpartum recovery and fluctuating hormones) was a feeling of overall exhaustion making running feel so dang hard.

My co-hosts shared similar experiences where paces were so much slower, and any semblance of endurance seemed very distant.

The findings of this recent large-scale study support our feeling that a postpartum bounce back is a lie. It has been validating for us and I hope you find it validating too.

Having a baby is challenging enough. We don’t need unrealistic expectations placed on us to rush through the postpartum period to get back to where we were. Instead, we need more information that supports that the postpartum period features a process that can’t—and shouldn’t be—rushed.

So, let’s get into what it found.

Study Finds the Postpartum Bounce Back is a Lie

This study, published in Science Advances, looked at 76 key biomarkers of from more than 160,000 women in Israel, between the ages 25 and 31, who together had more than 300,000 pregnancies. The goal was to assess how long it takes a woman’s body to fully recover from giving birth. The biomarkers were assessed before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after.

Key findings include:

• 47 percent biomarkers, including those for blood clotting, returned to pre pregnancy levels within about a month.
• BUT 41 percent did not. Almost half of women’s biomarkers took 10 weeks to more than a year to recover. These biomarkers include those related to the liver, immune system, kidneys, and bone and muscle metabolism:
  • Muscle metabolism was shown to be decreased signaling a loss in muscle mass up to 18 months postpartum.
  • Biomarkers for bone mass metabolism also indicated a temporary decrease in bone mineral density, potentially prolonged by breastfeeding. The study showed it took up to a year for bone mass recovery to occur.
  • Immune system biomarkers such as neutrophils took about 30 weeks to stabilize.
• Some biomarkers didn’t return to pre-pregnancy levels even a year after birth—including iron levels meaning postpartum runners could be anemic. (Iron is crucial for oxygen transport and energy production in running.)
• Important for mother runners, levels of a protein called C-reactive protein or CRP, stayed high for more than a year (80 weeks), signaling that inflammation remains elevated in the body for that period.

Why is this important?

How does this information help inform health care professionals, running coaches such as myself, and mother runners? It allows us to know for a fact that the body is still very much working hard to recover from all the work it underwent to grow and birth a human. And that feeling abnormal, even a year after having a baby, is actually very normal.

This longer recovery period has implications for both physical and mental health in new moms and impacts how a woman may progress in fitness and nutrition routine.

To ignore this process puts unfair expectations on new moms who already have too much weight to bear. I don’t have to detail how much a woman’s body has gone through to have a baby and then during recovery your sleep is atrocious (paramount for recovery), your hormones are crazy, and the stress of taking care of a defenseless little baby is sky-high—because if you are reading this, you probably already know. It doesn’t make sense to stress a new mom out about trying to recover faster than her body is physically able to.

To place unrealistic expectations or the notion that there is something wrong with you because you don’t feel right or look the same in the year following giving birth is just plain cruel. This is a special time for you and your baby. It should not be one that is rushed or made to make you feel like you will never be able to be the runner you once were or want to be.

Ignore the Postpartum Bounce Back Lie & Focus on Your Journey

Time and again, I have coached postpartum runners who feel like their old running selves are too far away—only to put in patient and consistent work and see her come back. She is in there and holding onto the belief that she will rise (again) in time is everything.

If that sounds like you right now—know that taking a year or more to feel somewhat like your old self is now SCIENTIFICALLY validated. And that gradual and consistent running and training, your running will progress the way you dreamed about.

So don’t give up hope. You are normal—and your goals are closer than you realize. 

Feel free to check out my free postpartum running resources including a training plan and complete postpartum running guide and reach out if you are interested in postpartum run coaching.

And I’d love to hear from you and your postpartum running journey. How long did it take for you to feel somewhat normal running postpartum?