Healing and Thriving After a C Section With Janette Yee

Andrea welcomes Janette Yee, a perinatal athletic therapist dedicated to transforming the approach to perinatal healthcare. Janette discusses the intricacies and recovery strategies for women who have undergone C-sections. Her extensive experience and pioneering online programs offer groundbreaking insights and practical tips to help women regain confidence and strength post-surgery. Janette’s expertise sheds light on a topic often overlooked in women's health, aiming to empower listeners with knowledge and actionable advice, whether they are directly affected or know someone who could benefit from this valuable information.


Instagram/TikTok @askjanette. Website: www.janetteyee.com

FREE resource about Cesarean Scar Massage: https://www.janetteyee.com/safety-first-3-caesarean-scar-massage-principle

Cesarean Recovery Foundations program- https://www.janetteyee.com/cesarean-recovery-foundations


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Transcript

[00:00:00] Well, hey there, welcome back. Today, we're going to be covering a very, very important topic, which affects a ton of women, yet I don't feel like there's always a ton of info and education to empower women on this subject. And that is why I am having Jeanette Yee on the podcast today to talk all things C section with you.

Jeanette Yee is a perinatal athletic therapist whose goal is to completely redefine the current state of our substandard public perinatal healthcare. She works with active moms who share her belief that confidence and strength in your body during pregnancy and after childbirth is a right, not a privilege.

Jeanette is the best known for her groundbreaking online caesarean birth recovery programs. And I will say her, her, her. Programs on recovery from a cesarean are amazing. And she's going to dive into some of that information today. And I'm hoping that you are going to walk away. If [00:01:00] you had a C section feeling empowered, and if you are listening and you didn't have one, send this episode to someone who did or tuck it away.

If you're thinking about having more kids so that you have something to go back to and know that you can have answers, you can feel good. You can be strong again. And some things that you're feeling don't have to be normal. Even if they're common, you don't have to feel that way. I know we tend to think of workout apps as just a place where we can get workout information, but I really wanted to build that education section.

So you could get not only good workouts, but. But killer information on a wide range of topics for women's health. And we're going to continually add to that section every single month as well. So check out her videos there as well. And don't forget, if you find this episode helpful, leave a review. Let me know.

I love to hear from you and it not only helps the podcast grow, but it helps us get more amazing guests just like Jeanette. Don't forget to follow along or subscribe wherever you listen. So all of the episodes are downloaded directly to your phone and [00:02:00] you don't miss out on any Any new episode that comes every single Wednesday.

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And I won't [00:03:00] have to feel bad if I lose a pair. I buy a couple pairs and they last me all summer long. And really, they should last me longer than that with the one year warranty, but I tend to lose them. So again, the price point for me is a huge one. I promise you're going to love the styles and they have a bunch of different ones.

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My name's Andrea Allen and I am a mother of four. Four girls under seven, a wifey to a mountain man, a personal trainer and a nutrition coach. I love all things women's health and fitness, but let's face it, the fitness industry is complicated and it's not built for the everyday mom. There's so much conflicting [00:04:00] information and you're busy and you don't have time to figure it out.

I hate feeling confused and overwhelmed, so I made it my mission to simplify health and fitness while creating a welcoming, realistic, and empowering home for like minded women. I'm happy you're here and I hope you stay a while.

Jeanette, I'm super excited to have you on. We've already been laughing before we even started the episode. I know, I know, right? Thanks so much for having me, Andrea. Of course. So let's talk a little bit about your background, how you got into, honestly, being such a pillar of C section and diastasis and just women's health.

So my background is, believe it or not, I'm an athletic therapist. So here in Canada. That it's a Canadian designation and even in Canada, most people have never heard of it. So for your listeners, you're like, what's an athletic therapist? Well, it's someone who works with sports injuries. You're probably wondering, [00:05:00] like, how the heck does that have to do with the variants?

Right. So, um, so my background is working with sports injuries, working with sports teams and specifically with female sports teams. Um, and, and more specifically with the sport of rugby. I was a rugby player as well for 15 years and I also served as the athletic therapist for the Ontario and the Canadian rugby teams.

And my background with them is once these athletes retired from their sports, And, you know, got pregnant, they'd be like, Hey, Jeanette, uh, you know, what can I, can I keep dead lifting 300 pounds? Like is this safe kind of deal? So, you know, my background also as the strength and conditioning coach for these sports teams, I'd be like, well, like, I don't know.

Let me, let me, you know. Let me check the Google. Like I think back, I'm dating myself now, 2003, like Google was just invented, right? Right. There was nothing there. [00:06:00] Right. And if you wanted to read research, you had to go to like, whatever, the, the, the reference library and like search for the research. So my background as an athletic therapist showed me that there was basically no information whatsoever for this very unique sport called pregnancy.

And then once my athletes gave birth, whether vaginally or by cesarean, There was literally nothing out there that talked about, Hey, here's the rehabilitation for this most common and most intense sports injury, right? Called childbirth. Yeah. So yeah, so my background as an athletic therapist, I'm looking at this going, Wait a minute, that does not seem right at all.

Right? So, um, Then my other background is I'm a mom. So while I recognize that there was such a gap in women's healthcare [00:07:00] and I'm in Canada and there was a gap in women's healthcare. And I'm like, well, wait a minute now that I'm a mom and I work with pregnant and postpartum Athletes, and I'm scared AF about being pregnant.

I'm hoping to God that I'm just going to deal with this when this human is out of my body because I'm in complete denial that I'm pregnant. And that's what most people do. They do, they're like, I'll deal with it afterwards. I'll deal with it down the road and then it becomes, the trauma sticks around and it feels even worse, you know?

And we all have some kind of story that we need to work through, right, Andrea? I know before we started recording this, you and I weren't even talking about that. Um, but you know, not to digress, but I just wanted to really focus on the fact that, you know, I was so scared as a perinatal therapist, by the way, athletic therapy then started working as, you know, more focused work on pregnancy postpartum.

I call that the perinatal time period. Despite me working with these athletes, I still felt I was very, [00:08:00] um, poorly equipped to deal with my own pregnancy. And I was terrified afterwards, postpartum, and I had two textbook vaginal deliveries, and your listeners can't see me doing air quotes, but textbook delivery by the medical system means You're not dying or bleeding out.

Essentially, you're good to go if you're not, if that's not the case. Right, that's crazy. Right. And so, Jeanette Yee here, who can speak perfect English, who was very well connected with some of the best therapists in all of Toronto, who can navigate the Canadian healthcare system, I still fell through the cracks.

For my postpartum care, and that's just the physical therapy side. Forget about the fact that I had postpartum depression the second time, and probably the first time, but never diagnosed. So, you know, my background training, but also my background experiences, [00:09:00] really equipped me with the fact that, hey, wait a minute, my textbook vaginal births We're so not textbook.

What the heck is happening to my sisters out there who are having a cesarean birth, a major abdominal surgery on top of being a first time mom on top of whatever, postpartum depression on top of, in my experience, my son was born with clubfoot. So a physical deformity, him, he himself needed physical therapy.

These are the things. That people, you know, the medical community would say, well, it's textbook. You're okay. I was not okay. And I knew as a therapist Um, my C section moms were definitely not okay. And so I committed my practice from that moment on after my son was born five and a half years ago. I'm like, my cesarean birth moms, they, they need the help.

[00:10:00] They definitely need the help. They need the attention. And I do feel it's like, Oh, you're fine. Okay. Okay. Bye. And it's cutting through so many layers as you know, and they do need that support. Yep. So let's talk about that. I feel like. I had a regular, you could call it textbook quote pregnancies. I have been open that I did have a blood transfusion and some things with my twins, but C section is a whole different animal.

So I really wanted to do this episode and talk about how we can support these moms, what they can do early on. And then even years and years later, because in general, in fitness, to me, the saddest thing, and I shouldn't even say fitness in women's health, I should say is when people think it's too late.

I'm too far gone. I'll never feel better. I'll never feel strong. I'll never feel functional. And that's what I really, really want to push women away from and that that's not true. We can always feel better. So let's first start with those early C section moms. What can they do [00:11:00] right after they have a baby to start feeling a little bit more like themselves?

Well, before I answer that question, I wanted just to add on to what you were saying, Andrea. Holy cow. We feel that this is the fact, but also society. It just normalizes that, it normalizes that it's okay to have a very mediocre healing. It's okay to have lifelong chronic pain, weakness. You're peeing yourself, your scar constantly hurts, your back hurts.

That should not be normalized. This is a woman's health issue, arguably a woman's rights issue. It's not okay. Yeah, right. So I think the more women we get in healthcare, the more people will realize, Oh, we don't have to be like this. It's not, yeah, it doesn't have to be this way. We're born from our own experiences.

We learn, I got so much into dice age recti because I learned from my own experience where I felt like a trainer and was like, I don't even know what's going on. How am I going to coach [00:12:00] other moms when my stomach is a wreck? So I'm hoping that With time, our healthcare system can be a little bit better every day, every year, you know, and we can really power through that.

Girlfriend, we don't, we do not need to sit back and wait. You are holding space on this podcast for millions of people who are listening. You are yourself paving and innovating change in women's healthcare without having to be a doctor, without having to be in the American healthcare system. I am making change without having to sit at the table at the board of directors of the biggest hospitals here in this country.

We don't need to be at that table. We are forging our own paths. Andrea, you are. I love that. I love that. I think that's for all of us. I do love that. A hundred percent. Let's talk about early cesarean healing. Let's get it. I know we could chat it up all day. So let's talk about it. What can they do in the beginning?

What do you want to tell that mama? Okay. First of all, I want to tell her It [00:13:00] seems like this pain will never go away. It seems like this body, which is so foreign and is so soft and is, it's cut open all these stitches and there's dried blood on all, it's unrecognizable, is temporary. This fear and maybe the shame and maybe the guilt and these feelings towards your birth experience, let's talk about it.

And you are so empowered to do that. Just a couple of things which I'm gonna share with your listeners that if you do just a couple of things your recovery will literally be miles and miles and miles ahead. It's actually not difficult to, it's not complicated. I should say to heal from, well, any surgery, you just need to know the tools.

So, so that's the first thing. I want you to be empowered to know that you can actually make a very big change and the sooner you start the better. So [00:14:00] let's say you just had your cesarean today. So let's say listeners, she's like, I'm holding my brand new infant. I'm in the hospital bed. What am I doing?

Okay, so let's talk about something called compression. And if, if, if someone's never had like a caesarean before, think of the biggest sports injury you've ever had, or maybe someone you know, their biggest surgery, injury, whatever. So let's, let's take a sprained ankle, for example. If you sprain your ankle so badly, it goes massive swelling.

The first thing you instinctively do is you wrap that ankle, right? You put a brace on it. You hold it anyway. You're like, Oh God, it hurts so much. It is true. You grab it. Right. Because you want to provide that feeling of support. And even though it hurts so much, even though you're squishing it, it actually, it helps.

It helps. It's the exact same thing [00:15:00] after cesarean, but here's the difference. It's not a joint. So you're not exactly putting this like giant immovable brace on it. You can't, but you can. Put on an abdominal wrap or a compression garment. Um, I'm wearing mine right now, but nobody can see it. So I was going to demo it.

And I thought, well, we're doing a podcast. They can't see this, but basically it comes up to, it comes up to my, my breasts, this compression garment covers the entire abdominal wall. And the purpose of it is to control the swelling. Why do we control the swelling? Because swelling causes pain, swelling.

slows down healing and swelling is a big part of why we see that C section shelf. So it actually tells me as your therapist, how well or not well you're recovering. You get that compression on, by the way, folks, gentle compression goes a long way. [00:16:00] Please don't squeeze the junk out of this ab wrap. Tighter is not better.

Yes. She's not talking about a corset. She's not talking about a waist trainer. No, not a waist trainer. We're talking about a gentle compression garment to just give you a little extra support, not a waist trainer, not a waist trainer. No. So that's the first thing, compression. And I, I understand in the United States, for most hospitals, they will give you an ab wrap.

And although the quality I understand isn't the best, it's kind of okay. You need it for an ab wrap, maybe for the first two weeks. I hear it falls apart, you know, the, the models at the hospitals, but the thing is if you can get a compression garment on, that is ideal. because you want to have protection of your abdominals for the first six weeks easily.

It is a really great investment. Um, and you will use it as you return to movement and exercise. Do you have any that you like, any brands or anything I can link just for people who say, [00:17:00] Oh, the hospital one was terrible for me or, or I'm home from the hospital. I'm a couple of weeks in and I don't have any, do you have any that I could just link in the show notes?

For sure. For, I'll do that for you link for that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's a compression garment and I'll send you the link for that. Obviously, you know, there's a price point for everybody and I don't want to say hey buy this 200 thing if someone's like really that's a lot of money. Friends, if you have high waisted yoga leggings like a lot of us have these and when I say high waisted I mean past your belly button.

Mm hmm, right. That actually makes a huge difference. Think about how compressive your pre pregnancy leggings are when after you've given birth. It's Quite compressive. So so grab those grab those as a solution in the interim. Okay, what else can they do after so let's talk about Oh my oh my gosh, there's a lot but let's talk specifically about scar care Okay, a lot of people go [00:18:00] Jeanette.

I hear about this thing called scar massage And yeah, I'm really interested in scar massage because I think it's going to help with the pain, how the scar is going to look, um, I really want to connect with my abs again. And yeah, scar massage can do all these things, but you're not massaging your scar on day one in the traditional sense.

Meaning you're not taking your belly and like, Manipulating the tissues and like, I'm demos, I'm again, I'm demonstrating this and you can't see, but I'm like twiddling it. You're not imagining it as needling or, um, kneading or patting, nothing like that. That's not a day one situation. No, no, it is not a day one situation.

However, the scar massage that you can do are little tiny piano key taps. So, yeah, so my fingertips are just tapping along, you don't even have to be on the scar. You can be around the scar, like inches [00:19:00] away from the scar and you're, you're tapping so gently that you're not even breaking the skin level.

Like I can't even see indentation on my face. On my, on my skin here. But it's pain free, and what it does is it helps that numbness. It also helps the body kind of chill out. Meaning, you've just gone through major abdominal surgery. Your sympathetic nervous system is in massive overdrive. There's a lot of pain going on.

So when you're doing this gentle kind of tap, tap, tapping. It tells the body, okay, hey, calm down, calm. And also, it's a precursor to actually starting more, um, traditional kinds of massage, right? Direct manipulation of the scar. We gotta be comfortable touching it. We gotta be comfortable exploring it and being curious about a incision there, right?

So desensitization massage, and you can do [00:20:00] this over your clothes, folks. Like you don't even have to be on your skin. It's super common to be, you know, afraid to look at and touch your scar for long periods of time. I mean, I just posted this a couple of days ago on my Instagram, and, and some folks were able to look at and touch their scar on day one, and some moms wrote in and said, you know, it's It's, it's year two, I still can't look at my belly.

Where you are is where you start. So that desensitization massage is appropriate even years later if you've never touched your scar. Okay. So even, even if you are further down, still start there, especially if you haven't ever touched it. It's going to help being able to ease you into more progressive massaging.

Absolutely. So along with that, are there any more for right after or are the rest of the things more like as you move along, it would just be a progression and these are things you could do a couple of weeks, couple months, couple years, 30 years, doesn't really matter. It doesn't. So, [00:21:00] so the take home message is it's never too late to do scar massage, but I'm going to be a little technical here from a therapy side of things.

When we're manipulating tissue with our hands. Understand that you're, you're affecting everything. It's not just the scar tissue, there's skin, there's fat, there's muscle, and there's something called fascia. And for the folks who've never heard of this funky word, it refers to your connective tissue. As a matter of fact, it, it is like bazillions of layers through your whole body and encapsulates absolutely every bone, every muscle, every organ, like it's everywhere.

The fascia. gets massaged. And the fancy word that we therapists use is fascial mobilization. So years later, is your scar tissue set? Like, can you not really change it much anymore? The answer is, a quick, the quick answer is, no, you can't really change it with your own hands, but you can change your [00:22:00] fascia!

At any point, and there are huge impacts that you can make on your own fascial adhesions, right? That connective tissue is being stuck down. You can make changes in that with your own hands. You don't need to see a therapist. You can do a lot of stuff yourself. Obviously, a therapist can help do different techniques and can teach you a lot more about your body, but I just want everyone to feel empowered to know you can make a huge difference yourself.

It doesn't take much. All right. So if someone is further along, can you give us some ideas of how they can improve that at home even without a therapist? Sure thing. And that's, you know what? I just want to acknowledge your gold standard is always going in person to see a therapist, but that is prohibitive for a lot of people.

And maybe some people can be like, yeah, I can see a therapist once, twice, three times in terms of a financial standpoint. And maybe that might be it. And in some, for some folks, there's just no one they can go and see. Right. There's just not such a [00:23:00] therapist, right? So if you can get in at least once. At least once, I feel like it's beneficial.

If you can do more than that, it's going to be very helpful, but at least, and, but I know there's situations where people say, I live in a rural community. There's not even a pelvic floor doctor or anyone who is an expert in this at all in my area. Happens all the time. Absolutely. So to answer your question is, can you make changes with your own hands?

Absolutely. And the way I teach my moms is five minutes a day, but every day. Okay. Okay, so we're looking at Compounding the effects of massage and it's same as exercise you exercise every day even like a couple minutes a day I like compounds. There's a change. It's better than doing one workout a week, right?

Yes, so rather than seeing the therapist once a month Literally, it's better than that. So, so your own hands are very useful. Now, what can you do in terms of your own scar massage? Well, it's kind of like the same as what you might do with your clients, [00:24:00] Andrea. So, uh, for someone who is familiar with going to see a personal trainer, you, you get a program, right?

If we do the assessment, you do the, here's, and we put together a program. For that client. Here's your program for the next eight weeks kind of deal We're gonna start with bodyweight squats and we're gonna progress to let's say goblet squats We'll use right and then here's leg press to switch things up, right?

So it's similar in the sense of scar massage. So while you can start great So you start at the beginning Desensitization belly breathing. Okay. These are day one things Okay. But if you only stayed there, you only get so far in your healing. It, it gets capped. Same as if you only ever did body weight squats.

You gotta progressively do something to connect more. Same thing. Exactly. So you progress the scar massage. So what might that look like? Well, so let's, by the way, folks, everyone's wondering when do I start my scar massage? Like what's the soonest I can actually [00:25:00] like physically manipulate the tissue. So because I see folks mostly remotely, I always defer to their physicians.

I want you to be discharged by your doctor because we got to make certain that you don't have an infection and that your scar has healed completely closed before you start manipulating it. Right. Okay. That makes sense. And usually that's at the six week mark here on Ontario. We have a six week checkup, but it's different in every center.

Okay. So you would start, you would literally like, again, I'm demoing and no one can see, but Will, I know you have some on your pod, on your Instagram. I'll add some videos of you as well. So you can explain it. And then I'll add those in the show notes. Okay. Oh my gosh. Perfect. Perfect. I'm showing it on my arm, but basically you don't even have to be on your incision, but you would take the skin.

I'm going to show you how to do it with your fingers, the pads of your fingers, all four if you can, and you just gently pull up on the skin. And folks, if you're trying this at home, and if you [00:26:00] can look at your scar in the mirror, or even looking down on your body, when you pull up on your skin, even inches away from the scar, you'll see the scar shift.

It moves. The definition of massage is to move, is create movement to manipulate the tissue. So you can do that without having to touch it. So the first thing you do is far away from the incision, gently pulling up folks, no pain. You pull and you hold, you belly breathe through it because again, your body's going to go into like, Oh my God, not safe, not safe.

And you gotta just tell the belly, tell the body it's safe. It's safe. We're not going to split open. This doesn't hurt. This is good. And then you, and then you progress. So you progress closer and closer to the incision. Folks, I'm just talking about the external incision. You have internal incisions too. So I'm just referring to the external one.[00:27:00] 

The way it progresses is this, number one, you get closer and closer to the incision with the same technique. Number two, you increase the range of motion with that technique. So if you were pulling and holding, you would pull a little more. Okay. Okay. And then third progression is you'd go deeper. And of course, if you think of, Oh, there's three ways I can progress the one massage.

Suddenly you've got, what is that? Like many permutations of how you can progress this one scar massage technique. And when you mean go deeper, do you mean literally pushing in and then pulling up, like just pushing it? So it's not so much pulling, but it's literally a push and a pull at that point. And then getting closer to the scar, pushing and pulling.

Yeah. Pushing into your belly, getting deeper and deeper into your belly. The idea is to get deeper. You think about the actual surgery. And folks, I'm going to explain to you surgery in like one minute here, which is really interesting because so many moms [00:28:00] don't even know what has happened to their bodies, but there are not, there's not one cut made on your abdominals after a cesarean.

There are three, there are three massive cuts. One happens to be horizontal that you see. Through skin and fat, but when that gets pulled open, then there's a vertical one right down your linea alba Meaning right down your diastasis. Your diastasis is cut! I never realized it was the opposite diree. No wonder people are like, I have, you know They're struggling with DR afterwards because the linea alba, it's not only stretched, but it's cut.

For real. Andrea, you have to put your reaction on a video where everyone can see that you're like, My jaw like dropped and I put my hands on my head and I was like, what do you mean the scar goes the other way? What? But now it makes sense. So anyone who's ever had a cesarean, if you're like trying to explain to your friends, your therapist or [00:29:00] your doctor, you're like, no, it hurts up and down.

You're right. There is a big long scar. I don't know how many inches long because we can't see it But it's there and it needs to heal and your abdominals connect left and right side of your six pack Connect through that linea alba and it's trying to heal but you're you're flexing your abs all day long You're getting out of bed.

You're getting out of a chair. You might be sneezing god forbid. You're sick. You're coughing Right. Um, you are at the very least using your abs 6 million times a day, but they're trying to heal. That's why they hurt. Yeah. That's why they hurt. So you can't even see that scar to even realize how that scar is doing.

Can't even see it. I'm not even done. Then that, so back to the surgery, their linear Alba incision gets pulled open. There's stuff in the way just to simplify it all gets moved aside. And then the entire pregnant uterus is exposed. That gets its own. through [00:30:00] the entire uterus thickness wall incision. Okay.

Then you birth your baby, but hang on stitches, close up the uterus. Nothing closes up the linea alba. It's not stitched anymore. You can request it, but it's not stitched anymore. Okay. And then the external incision has stitches or, you know, staples or subcutaneous glue and or steri strips covering. But folks, this is a major, Abdominal surgery.

You are not to massage it and manipulate it. It needs to heal. Give it time. It needs to close up and it needs to close well. Do not disturb it, respect it, and your body will, will heal so much faster. It never closes up. That's amazing. And that would make sense why some people, even after birth, would be more prone to get diastasis recti because they're using those muscles maybe prematurely, or not even prematurely, but [00:31:00] just on the daily with normal things, and then they're already split.

Would it cause them to possibly get it easier after? Because, you know, some moms, they can develop it afterwards because they're not. You know, properly bracing their core and they're doing things prematurely after even with a regular Textbook birth. Sure. You know what Andrea? I don't know what the literature says about this.

So I'm not gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna fall down a black hole and write research papers. No, I Honestly, there are some fantastic fantastic Instagram accounts of Clinician researchers who would just I would absolutely link below this You Podcast. Okay, we'll do that. You must follow a couple of these amazing clinician researchers, but, but the point is this, a lot of cesarean birth moms, and you know, I can't, we're kind of going into what happens to cesarean birth healing years later.

You gotta not just do the scar massage and the fascial massage, [00:32:00] um, and it's never too late to start that, but it's also never too late to start the other thing that's super important, which is the exercise. Friends, your abs are cut open. You must exercise for them to heal and there are cesarean specific exercises.

So what makes a cesarean specific exercise? First of all, all your diastasis exercises are cesarean specific. So for all you see birth moms out there who are like, Oh yeah, you know, I don't really have a diastasis or, or what, or I don't know that I need it. I'm telling you now, you need it more. It's not just an issue of DR, it's, Oh, your abs are split.

Now we need to heal them back together. Like they're physically cut somewhere, maybe a couple of inches. We don't know where, and you're right, [00:33:00] but, but you gotta respect that healing. You gotta get that, you know, the massage keeps things from getting stuck down and the exercise is If you do it immediately after the massage holds that new range of motion that your tissues are like, Oh, shoot, Andrew wants me to move like this.

Oh, this is my new normal. Right. Versus just tightening back up. Okay. It's no different than going to a PT and they warm you up and they do all the things, you know, they get your muscles moving. They give you a massage. They pull on you. They get your mobility. And then they're like, okay, now let's work the muscle.

you know, now let's work what's injured and let's do exercises. It's the same thing. You now, after you've done your massage, you've pulled, you've pushed, you know, you've worked on that, then do your Dysasis exercises because now that muscle is like, Oh, this is what we're supposed to be doing more. So it's like almost warm in a way.

Yes. And your abs, honestly, folks, they want to. So, so [00:34:00] don't, don't think that it's too late, friends, our bodies heal in spite of us. Our bodies are designed to heal. They're healing machines. They are, they are, um, like compensating machines. If you can't move a certain way, your body's gonna figure out a way to do it.

It's gonna do. Your body is just fine. What rehab does is that little bit of extra helps guide that body to do what it already wants to do. That's what I want you to hear. It's like, it's, be empowered to know that it's doesn't take, it doesn't take much, doesn't take much. So even if you're years post, start, start where you're at, start where you're at.

If you're just hearing about scar massage and cesarean specific exercises for the first time today, and you're five, 10 years postpartum, you still have scar pain. You know, your abdomen, you can't sit up. Yeah. By the way, if you did any of my programs, anybody who had a [00:35:00] caesarean has to be able to do a full plank and has to be able to do sit ups.

You have to. That's what your abs were designed to do. And that's just daily, daily movement. Daily movement is going to force you into that. Whether you're doing that exercise or not, it's going to force you to sit up, to pick up a kid, to lean forward, to do all of those things anyway, even if you're not doing it in an exercise pose, you know?

For sure. And to do it correctly. Correctly. So correctly is. So I refer to it as the ABCs. And again, if you're years post Caesarean, you can still start with your ABCs. A is your alignment. How are you holding your spine? Are you still standing like you're pregnant with your belly out and your, right, big back arch, that kind of thing, right?

B is breathing. Are you breathing up only up into your upper chest because you, your body still thinks it's pregnant and you know, the baby's taking up all the real estate where your lungs were? Well, you got to breathe down into your, all your lobes of your lungs. Are you breathing into your, you know, lower lobes?

Are you, you know, are your, [00:36:00] is your belly relaxed when you're trying to exercise and that goes to the C of the ABCs. What's your core control and control means the whole darn thing works together. Pelvic floor with your transverse abdominis, with the deeper muscles of your spine, with the respiratory diaphragm while you're executing a movement.

Maybe you're lifting something heavy. Maybe you're moving fast. Maybe you're reacting. You know, this is core control It's never too late to retrain that. I love that. So if someone's starting with that scar massaging and then they're like, okay I need to ease back into exercise. What other tips do you feel?

How do you feel about cupping? I've seen a lot of people talking about cupping the massage Like what are your thoughts on that or anything else people can do along with the exercise? I love that you gave that a plug because I do think people fear That movement and I'm like, oh that movement's only gonna make you feel better in the long run a hundred percent movement is medicine [00:37:00] for sure But let's talk about cupping.

I was nodding when you were saying that it's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, that is your own Homework, you can do fashion mobilization yourself cupping isn't tough to learn Uh, and for folks who are like, what's cupping? Uh, it's a traditional Chinese medicine technique traditionally used with acupuncture to increase qi flow in the body, areas of the body where qi or energy is stagnant.

So we're not using cupping in a traditional Chinese medicine way. We're using cups which suction your skin. and then to drag it along the skin. So there's movement, dynamic cupping, not static cupping. That dynamic cupping forces any stuck fascia to move. And, and yeah, it can be painful, but it was very effective.

And it's an advanced technique. You're not starting with this. So folks, if you've never touched your [00:38:00] scar, you've never massaged it. Even if you're years and years out, please don't start with cupping. It is an advanced technique, but it's a very effective technique when done. Right. Again, in combination with the right exercises that your specific body may need.

Okay, so we could start desensitizing, self massage, movement, learning to get the muscles to connect. You know, the whole core, I often call it a canister, you know, top to bottom way from up here down to the pelvic floor. If you're a regular listener, you know that. And then possibly moving into cupping, which is like a way, they're not normal cups.

Like you're not going to get a water cup. You'll have to look online and I'll see if I can add a link for them. But they're like these small, it's almost like a suction cup. In fact, I feel like they became, I don't want to say they became popular because obviously they've been around forever. Yes. I feel like the first time people really started noticing it, at least mainstream, and I could be wrong, was a few years ago when, um, Michael Phelps was [00:39:00] cupping when he was in the Olympics.

It was years and years and years ago. People were like, what's he doing? Cause he had like some marks on his back. He's cupping for, for blood flow and some other things. So you can look into that next. Do you happen to have any videos on that? I don't, off the top of my head, only because it's one of these things.

As a therapist, people can hurt themselves. Be tricky. Okay. . Alright. And no, it's not tricky, but off. Yeah. But the thing is, as a therapist, like I do my due diligence, like, Hey, try this. And people will be like, oh my God, I just damaged myself. Um, it's right. It is a tool, it is a tool in your rehab so you can look into it if you feel good, and it might be a good idea to, to go to a therapist and have them teach you or have them help you your first.

Your first round. Yes, yes. That is always, that is always best practice. And I love how you kind of summarize it. You're like, okay, so desensitization and moving on, you know, exercise. Um, what I would tweak about that summary is that exercise starts day one. [00:40:00] Okay. And when I say exercise, so I don't typically use the term exercise when I'm referring to rehabilitation.

It's, I use the term movement. Okay. Um, because I know, I know the folks. Well, that I work with, they're all athletes like, Oh, exercise. Right. So it's one hour of heavy lifting in the gym. I got to like, so my gangster rap on. Yeah. I got to get in the zone. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So day one. Yeah. So movement can be as simple as.

If you're in the, if you're in the hospital bed right now, folks, just raise your arms up and down. That is huge. You will feel restrictions in your front body because your body has been physically traumatized and it wants to close. You got to open it. Okay. So movement like five arm raises, two arm raises for goodness sakes, but every hour is literally what I would prescribe first.

Belly breathing is a movement. It is also an exercise. It tunes in connects with your transverse [00:41:00] abdominis. You do that first. Okay. Day one. Yeah. Yes. Let's get into that then because that was a big one for me after all with my twins I totally did everything wrong, which is why now I'm so into this because I I Was like wow, no one taught me and school didn't teach me But I understood with my single babies my two after that and I did film a video Literally in the hospital the next day doing my core breathing and showing just that connection But what about the mom who's like, I'm numb.

I had a C section. I can't even feel anything because I know a lot of times when people are working on their diastasis recti, they will message me and say, you know, I'm doing the exercises you suggest. I'm doing this and that, but I can feel nothing. So they can't even tell if they are connecting properly.

They're like, I feel nothing to know if my pelvic floor is lifting, if it's lowering, if my, you know, transverse abs are knitting together, you know, like is a cue we often use are zipping up. Is it another cue? They're like, I can't even feel, I can't feel anything. So what [00:42:00] cues do you give that woman who is learning to breathe, trying to master that simple breathing of really activating the entire core, but feels nothing because of the C section?

This is such a common challenge and I'm about to fix it for like 80 percent of your listeners. That's what we're looking for. This is what we're going to do. We're going to do this. So the, okay. I love how you said, I didn't learn this in school. So the, one of the things that I didn't learn in school as a therapist is another word for engaging your pelvic floor because the pelvic floor never engages on its own is engage your lower transverse abdominis.

Like they kind of neurologically pair. You can't really fire one without the other. Yeah. So Jeanette Yee here is like, Oh yeah, I engaged my pelvic floor. And to me, I just thought I just got to like, squeeze my bum hole as hard as I could. Cause you're in [00:43:00] school. Like what else are you? I don't even know.

Like, what are you talking about? I actually talked about that. That was the mistake I made when I was learning is the PT was like, you know, lift your pelvic floor. And I was like, I am. And she was like, no, you're not. Right. I've talked about that on the podcast before. Right. And so, so, so that's the biggest, my biggest aha moment was, Oh my gosh, if I can engage my lower transverse, my anterior pelvic floor, meaning the front part, urethra and vagina also engage.

They can't not. Conversely, if I can relax my lower transverse, my pelvic floor also relaxes. And I know there are some listeners here who are like, Uh, I've been told I have a very tight pelvic floor. I got to relax it. Listen, folks, I don't know about you, but when someone cues me to relax my pelvic floor, I don't know if I'm doing it right.

Like, I don't have like, I can't touch it and I could, but I'm like, I don't know. So [00:44:00] here's what I want everyone to do. So you're going to put your hand on your scar. You can do this over your, your clothes. You don't have to do it, you know, on your scar itself. Okay. The first thing I'm going to ask you to do is let your belly hang into your hand.

Some of you may realize that, Oh, I didn't even realize it was clenched this whole time. Okay. Your scar is your lower transverse. I am a belly clencher. I don't know about you, Andrea. I'm a, I'm a belly clencher in rehab. I'm a sucker in rehab. I need to not suck it in. I got to let it go. So the first part about cueing your pelvic floor after cesarean is to let it go by letting your abdominals go.

go your deep abdominals. So now that your scar is relaxed into your hand and folks, if you're doing the sitting and it's not working, try it in the other [00:45:00] positions. So not just sitting, standing, lying down, or my favorite one on all fours. That's my favorite. Yeah, it's a great beginner position. So first you let it hang.

Here's the next part. Your hand is on your scar. Can you pick your belly up out of your hand without changing your spinal position? So all you're doing is you're, I hate using the term suck it in, so I'm not going to say suck it in. So what I'm saying is pick your belly out of your hand. Can you do that?

If you can, that's not only your lower transverse. But your pelvic floor is also being engaged. So friends, try that again. So I know everyone's focusing on their abs. Do the exact same thing with your abs, but this time, observe what your pelvic floor is doing. Don't change anything. Just observe. [00:46:00] So again, belly hanging into your hands.

Gently pick your belly out of your hands. Observe what is your pelvic floor doing. Andrew, did you feel anything? Yes. It's lifting it naturally when you do that. A cue I like to give for that. I love that you said pull your belly away. Imagine holding an ice cube and you're moving your belly away from a cold ice cube.

Ooh. Like to draw the belly in because like if something's cold, you're like, oh. And you move your belly in naturally. And that's not sucking in. You're not sucking in when you do that. You're just moving the muscle back. And that is an easy way for people to be like, Oh, that's my transverse abs. But I love that you paired that with, don't overthink the pelvic floor.

It's going to move. If you can feel your transverse abs, they are connected. They are sidekicks, Batman and Robin. It's going to do its job, right? They're buddies. They are buddies. And so practice that moving that [00:47:00] belly away, the scar away from your hand. And then, yeah, connecting that, like, what did my pelvic floor do and same thing when you're relaxing it into your hand.

What did my pelvic floor do? Exactly. So that was my big aha moment as a patient. Yeah. And of course helped me inform as a therapist, what made sense. And listen, folks, different cues work for different people. This may not work for you. Please don't give up. Nothing is wrong with you. Something's wrong with my cue.

Okay. Nothing's wrong with you. Okay. My cue isn't for everybody. The same way, you know, my pelvic floor therapist after my first baby, uh, Oh, the common one. Oh, pick up the blueberry. Oh, yes. Your vagina. That was a hard one. Girl, I've never picked anything up with my vagina. What are you even talking about?

What? I actually really like the pelvic floor. Imagine sucking a [00:48:00] thick milkshake up your lady region because I think about the motion my mouth makes like, like my mouth. And I'm like, Oh, now my mouth, my pelvic floor. Yeah. Yeah. I've also heard some people that doesn't click, you know? No, no. But like slurp up spaghetti.

I heard that once or, or I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. I get that. Right. I get that. But that's my anus. I don't, I, I would naturally use my vagina for that. But Hey, I digress. The point is different cues work for different folks and the blueberry did not work for Janette. Yeah. So don't feel bad if one's not connecting.

I try to give a lot of different cues and sometimes I'm like, I think people probably think I'm crazy because I'm like, an elevator shaft, a crane, but I know that different things will connect based on the person. So I love the one that you said, don't overthink it. Just allow your belly to relax in your hand and then move your belly out of your [00:49:00] hand without sucking in.

So when you're moving the belly out of your hand, you guys can also think of it like this. Make sure you're not holding your breath. You shouldn't have to hold your breath to move your belly back. If you have to hold your breath to move your belly, you're probably sucking in. Because you should be able to move the belly and still breathe normally.

Exactly. There we go. That'll, that's, that solved 80 percent of everybody's, and by the way, if it didn't solve yours again, nothing is wrong with you. And there are different situations too. Maybe you had a pelvic floor tear. You know, we got to do some more specific assessment for that. Maybe, you know, there's, there's a lot of other things to the story.

This is not all of it. But it's a big part of it. Totally. And you can practice that. Like if you don't feel it the first time, most of the time, as we've both said, when I was first in physical therapy and trying to connect, I didn't feel things right away. I kind of had to like work through those motions and be like, Oh, okay.

I think I get it now. It [00:50:00] wasn't like I did it instantly and it was like, Oh, okay. All's well in the hood. You know, I didn't feel that way. It took me time. So give yourself that time to try to connect to that breathing because that breathing is going to make a huge difference in helping you, as Jeanette said, with the ABCs, with connecting and being able to move into traditional movements and become feeling strong in those movements.

Yeah, there's that going back to what we were just talking about the progression folks. Don't just end there. This is stage This is step one of many. How are you gonna get from? Okay, I can draw my scar away from my hand all the way to playing national level rugby There's a couple of steps in there and you want to go through those progressions So, please just because you can do step one slash a lot of people think oh like I can do a kegel My pelvic floor is good to go.

Yeah, I know the common one um I don't feel pain anymore. I'm [00:51:00] healed. Yeah. And I go, this is, that's the great, that's a danger zone. That's when you're not in pain, but also not strong. Right. That's when re injury happens. And this is what we're trying to prevent. This is what we're trying to prevent. Oh, I love you pointing that out.

So it's not just about pain, but you're not strong yet. You want to keep going to be strong so you don't have to re injure and you don't have to have the chance of being in pain down the road from doing things because you're not strong enough yet. So keep going. Give keep moving keep moving in that progression.

That's the big thing. I wish all cesarean birth moms knew Andrea I wish like if oh my gosh, I hear it so often Jeanette I don't know that I need therapy anymore cuz I'm I'm not in pain I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to you know, I'll just go easy in the weight room and I'll be fine And you know, I'm not saying If this is something you did, you know, shame on you.

My goodness. I did the exact same thing. [00:52:00] I did the same thing too. I was doing planks like four weeks after my twins. And I was like, what's wrong with my stomach? And there's so many reasons for that. A that's maybe what we know we're athletes or where we, we, um, we, a part of our lifestyle is movement. So we just go back to what we know, that's one, right?

And number two is like, I want to get my abs back. I don't, I don't know a single mom who said, no, I don't, I don't care what my abs look like at all. A hundred percent. Don't care at all. You know, it's friends. I want you to know it's not a vanity metric to want your abs to look better because again, as a therapist, what that cesarean incision looks like.

We can talk about that C section shelf. If there is a shelf like appearance, there's a swelling and be a tight scar that tells me you haven't optimized your healing yet. Let's do the [00:53:00] rehab. I want you to do the scar massage and the strengthening, the right retraining, I should say, not even strengthening.

So that the side effect is less C section shelf or C section shelf gone, right? That's not a vanity metric. Jeanette, I used to have washboard abs. You know, can I get them back? And instead of saying, Oh, be grateful that your baby is healthy, and of course you're grateful for that, and thank god we had this medical intervention that you were able to survive your baby's birth.

Yeah? Because in the past you would have just died. Yes, but let's be, let's acknowledge for a second. It does matter what you look like. You need to feel proud in your body. It does. The side effect of rehabilitation is strength. The side effect of rehabilitation is confidence. The side effect of rehabilitation is looking good, feeling good.[00:54:00] 

So let's not shame each other. Don't shame yourself to just to want to look better. That's not what I hear when someone says that to me. I'm like, I'm all in. Let's, let's, let's reframe it though. So you know that that's not, you know, I'm not here to calorie restrict and get you to wear a, you know, a waist trainer.

No, the side effect of optimal recovery are all those things. Yeah. Functionality, strength, all of those things. Yeah. Yeah, I do wish everyone knew that. Right, pain, of course you're going to stop hurting, but it doesn't mean that your body knows how to move. And then the next step of after that is it doesn't mean your body's strong.

Right? And I want you to get there. And you can. It's so true. Let's talk more about the um, C section shelf because I know that you probably hear it a lot. I hear it a lot. People feel stuck with this shelf [00:55:00] and you're saying a lot of times we have that shelf because, correct me if I'm wrong, but like in the process, you said, I kind of can tell how the healing went based on sometimes that shelf.

Like if, There's scar tissue, if the fascia moved well, all of those things. So if someone's saying, I'm five years out, I'm 10 years out, I'm one year out, doesn't really matter, 30 years, I have a shelf. What can they do at that point to try to improve that for not only, you know, look, but for functionality and strength and abilities.

First thing I want to say about this is folks, the C section shelf isn't a term Andrea, nor I chose. Yes. Yes. I should. Yeah. Not. Right. Um, and from, I digress for one second because I wish we did actually have a medical name for it. And that's the thing. I wish we did. And I've asked doctors. I've asked doctors.

It's like when people say the mommy pooch and I'm like, well, it's actually called diastasis recti. Stop calling it the mommy pooch. [00:56:00] Right. It has a medical term. Like, come on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I just want to acknowledge that words matter. And for people listening who are like, uh, C section shelf. Oh, shelf.

It sounds so gross. Andrea and I agree that that's not an optimal name for it. Like this is no, we're not supposed to body shame. Like, uh, and that's not our intention. So that's what I want to say first. And the second part is please understand that when we speak a language that doesn't have a word. to describe something that affects millions of women.

Think a little critically about what that culture values and doesn't value. Please understand that then it is your, it is, the work is, uh, Upon us then to acknowledge that while there may not be a [00:57:00] word for it, while there may not be, um, Rehabilitation as a standard of care after childbirth in our national medical systems, While this is not even mentioned as a standard of our six week checkup by literally any physician anywhere, Please also know that we are empowered.

Therefore, once we know that there's a limitation, Please also know that That we can give words to this now, so I playfully call it the c section shelf. I don't accept it as this is what it is. Um, and, and, and it's, and, and please don't be angry about the fact that in the English language there isn't a word for it, but be aware that there isn't because this is, it kind of shows what is what.

What's important and what's not in this language. Totally. And I do wish they would come out with a medical word for it. They don't have one. Because it would be [00:58:00] Because it is an issue of the scar tissue and some other things, but yet we give it this cheesy name, which can make people feel discouraged.

And that's definitely not the goal. The goal is to figure out, look, we have this issue and it really is an issue of the fascia and the scar tissue in so many layers. Let's figure out how to try to make that better. Like it's not anything else, you know, and, and you're right in that it can feel like body shaming.

That is never anyone's goal. The goal is to, we wish we had a better word for that, but what can we do to try to improve that situation from a medical perspective, you know, like absolutely. Absolutely. And so I'm going to, I'm going to reclaim this word and I'm going to empower it by giving it Jeanette's definition, because when we can define something accurately, then we can understand what the next steps are.

And some people might go, I have a C section shelf. And then I'm going to tell you in a second, what my definition is. And you may realize, Oh, wait a minute. That's not what [00:59:00] That's not what I have, and therefore what Jeannette's about to explain will not be a solution for me. Okay. So I want to take a moment to define, when I refer to a C section shelf, it is the shelf like appearance that occurs when the external incision heals tighter than the tissues above and below it.

Okay. That's all. Okay? And there's two main reasons why that happened in early healing anyway. Their swelling, combined with, well, scar tissue is tighter than Non scar tissue. So you got the two things going. One is pushing out and one is cinching in. As the months go on, you're also gonna have fascial adhesions.

And again, that's the fancy word that describes the connective tissue layers start to stick together because they weren't told to move. They didn't know they had to. Um, and then also there are other factors that play into this appearance. So I actually have a resource [01:00:00] about, you know, what causes the c section shelf, and there's actually over nine I can think of off the top of my head, uh, because swelling isn't the only thing that causes a bulge past the external incision.

There's extra skin, extra fat, loose muscles, and there's different reasons why those things might also occur from a hormonal perspective, for goodness sakes. And so let's say, You are holding more body fat because you haven't slept through the night for seven months and your cortisol levels are Beyond jacked, right?

Yes. Star massage isn't gonna help that Because the cause is actually your hormonal profile needs to improve because you're so stressed because you're not sleeping So Jeanette Yee's program is not gonna help. You need to sleep. That's what's gonna help. So that's why I'm defining it So, so that's, that was the second, the third question you were like, so what do we do about this?[01:01:00] 

You just said, I do want to point out, you can work on some of the things she's going to bring up, but you can't, they're not going to fix if there's other factors like the sleeping, like, you know what I mean? The hormones, there's so many hormones off, especially when you are recently postpartum and in general, even as women age hormone shifts so much.

So do recognize. There are lots of variables that are going to help you and it's not going to be, Instagram loves to be like, this exercise snatched my waist. And I'm like, stop it, stop saying stuff like that because we're, we're putting these items on a pedestal where there's lots of layers. So as we get into these ideas of how to fix it, realize, or not fix it, I should say improve that situation.

Realize there are a lot of variables that we weren't able to go into today, like the sleep and hormones and some other things. Absolutely. So thank you for highlighting that. That's extremely, extremely important. So let's talk about the physical therapy part of things, [01:02:00] which is what Jeanette E can do. So now, if you have a tight scar, you want to make it untight.

So that's where scar massage comes into play. So earlier on in our talk here, we talked about, what's the first type of scar massage you could do on day one? desensitization, right? Is that directly going to help your scar from, you know, being not tight? Well, no, but that is the precursor to you being comfortable enough to touch your scar so that you can massage it so that it won't heal tight.

Okay. So that's a huge part. And then that's swelling. Compression is a huge part of rehabilitation. Get that compression on on day one or as soon as you're comfortable. If you can get rid of that swelling, well that's, that's a huge part of the game plan. Um, so that's, that's the first six weeks of rehab right there.

And then once you can start touching that scar, once the doctor's given you a go ahead, [01:03:00] then you follow a rehab program. Just like Andrea would give you a strength training program, Jeanette would give you a rehab program. Here are all the scar massage techniques that you will do. Here's how they progress.

Over how long you might ask? Months. It's a major abdominal surgery. It'll be a six month rehab. Minimum. Six to twelve months, let's be real. Unless you have, uh, full time rehab available to you, and some women do, and full access to facilities, and some people do, you heal a lot faster than six months. But it's, uh, It's not the case.

You're doing this under sleep deprivation as well, folks. Yes. Right? So a little bit of grace is needed. Scar massage paired with the right exercises, C section shelf decreases. And it can happen [01:04:00] even 20 years later. You're not stuck. It's an issue of proper care. Oh, thank you for bringing that up. So as you get further and further away from the date of surgery, the treatment plan absolutely changes.

Okay. Because what happens is that scar tissue becomes, well, pretty much, I'm not going to say the word permanent because of course it can change, but it is very difficult for you to change it yourself. It's more stubborn. We're going to call it stubborn. Let's use the word stubborn. No, no, no. It's doing its job.

It's a good thing. It's doing its job so that you're never going to split open again. But here's the thing, there are tools out there that can help wake up the metabolism and scar tissue so that it can be changed again. and I use a tool in my practice called the Dolphin MPS. Okay. And it's, it's very helpful.

It's for all kinds of scar tissue. Okay. Right. So, so even if you're 20 years out, there are tools out there that can help loosen up and [01:05:00] decrease adhesions of really, really aggressive scar tissue. Okay. Um, but then again, the further out you are, it becomes more multifactorial. Right now you've got toddlers.

You've got different stress levels. Maybe you're back at work. What's going on with your marriage? You know all these different things it impacts. Are you moving? What's your exercise been like? Are you sleeping? How is your sleep? How's your digestion? Are you pooing? All these things, all these things matter.

Right and and the further out you get I want to highlight this the more important exercise gets. Okay. Because fascia, again, is living and breathing, it is way more impacted by exercise than scar tissue will be the further out you are from your surgical date. Okay, so we gotta move. Gotta move. Movement is medicine.

Alright, we'll finish up here. What do you want? I know you've kind of already talked about, but what do you want to [01:06:00] leave with the mama who has a c section? What do you want her to walk away from this episode knowing or feeling? I want her to know that whatever you are currently struggling with in terms of your rehab, whatever isn't working for you right now, my friend, that is temporary.

It is temporary. There is help for that. Absolutely, it does not have to be your new normal. I love that. All right, where can we find you? I know you're on social media, you have a website, give us all the information. And you see patients in person as well still. I do, I do. A handful of patients in person in the Toronto area, but I do see a lot of folks online as well as through my programs.

Okay. And all the information can be found on, so I'm on Instagram and TikTok at ask Jeannette because ask Jeannette your questions. So that's my handle. That's how I show up. And my web owner page one day. Yeah. Exactly. [01:07:00] Andrea did have a question. Exactly. Um, and then, and then my website is my name, jeannetteyee.

com. Awesome. Thank you so, so much for being here. Oh my gosh. It is my absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for giving me a platform. This is such an important topic that so many people are impacted with. Um, and people just need to know that they're empowered to make a change. It doesn't take much at all.

I sure hope that you found Jeanette as educational and empowering as I do. Don't forget to check her out on social media, check out her C section programs and visit her videos within the app on C section so you can even learn more with C section. some visuals as well. I love that she pointed out that most things that we are experiencing right now are temporary.

There are answers and there are different paths based on where you are, but whether you are a couple of weeks or even a day after having a baby or you were years and years, there's still things you can [01:08:00] do to improve your scar, to improve your functionality and to get stronger. All right, that's it for today.

As always, you are doing so much better than you think you are. We'll chat next week.