Loving the Loads
Whatever you’ve been told, discomfort and dysfunction from the loads of pregnancy or the postpartum period is not “normal.” There is an easier way! Work with me to prevent or reduce the common aches and pains of the baby days, and optimize your body for childbirth.
Restorative Exercise
I teach biomechanically efficient and sustainable movement, in a tried-and-true system that reduces symptoms of discomfort and dysfunction during pregnancy and postpartum, and that easily translates beyond the childbearing years to optimize function throughout life.
Optimal Fetal Positioning
Everything I teach my clients about how to move well contributes to optimal fetal positioning. But I am additionally trained in techniques to create space for a baby to turn when there is a known “malposition.”
Becoming Your Body’s Bestie
How do you want to feel in your body?
Purposeful? Free? Joyful? Accepting? Balanced? Powerful? Able? Most of us have parts that are hungry for new kinds of movement and new kinds of caring. I can help you identify the best movements to feed your body, so you can walk away from pain, or simply into greater freedom and ease. Whatever your goal is, and wherever your body is right now, I can help you craft a plan and a mindset to get you there.
Within 1 week of implementing Meredith’s recommendations, my sciatic pain was completely gone (and never returned). The tension and discomfort in my legs, back and glutes disappeared, and my gait and lower body strength improved as well. I’m without a doubt convinced our work together helped me achieve a happy and successful home birth for our son. Lessons I learned with Meredith will serve me and my family for our whole lives!
How Can I Help?
Stacking the Cards in Your Favor for Birth
While we need to honor the body where it is, the tools I share with you will stack the proverbial deck in your favor. As your pregnancy progresses you will feel confident that you are moving in all the right ways to create space for your baby and to have strong, yielding birthing muscles.
Diastasis Recti? Sneeze pee? SI Joint Dysfunction? Pubis Symphysis separation? Prolapse? Back pain, hip pain...?
These common complaints of the pelvic region cannot be strictly addressed at the pelvis. We’ll work from your feet to the tip of your head, to optimize the way you are loading your body, and minimize the likelihood of pain or dysfunction.
Postpartum Movement
The work we do in pregnancy will support your postpartum recovery as well. We’ll talk about how you and your baby develop symbiotically, and how you can care gently for your postpartum body as you return to your normal routines.
Natural Movement Coaching
You’ve heard about the Paleo diet. Have you ever wondered what Paleo movement looks like? While I don’t expect any of us to return to hunter-gathering, I can teach your family how to move in new (old) ways: your kids will have a leg up in the world as you allow them to receive these biologically essential mechanical inputs—as important to their health as vitamins and minerals.
A Bold Move.
I love working with people who are ready for change and committed to moving in the right direction. It doesn’t matter how much moving you’ve done—or haven’t done—to this point. What matters is that you know what you want, and you know that with the right support, information, and mindset you can move mountains.
If you answer yes to any of the following questions—and you like my take on things—we are a great fit. Let’s get in touch.
Do you worry your body won't be ready for birth?
Stay present, mama. You can’t know what birth will be like for you, but you can make space each day to rest, to move, to nourish, and to be mindful. Unless you are dealing with conditions beyond normal pregnancy (let’s chat!), a simple set of exercises and a good deal of walking should allow you to breathe easy, and trust.
Do you feel frustrated with postpartum exercise?
Maybe you don’t feel like you have time to go to the gym, or move your body at all, in between nursing sessions, naps, and maybe preschool pickups and work. You might be surprised at the ways your baby can facilitate all the right kinds of movement—your bodies have symbiotic needs beyond feeding and snuggling. Your work hours also offer more opportunities for movement than you have realized. The solutions may be closer than you know!
Do you suspect there's more to the pelvic floor than kegels?
We were made for each other; I love pelvic floor talk, and whole body solutions. The pelvic floor can’t be isolated from the rest of the body—particularly the posterior leg, but then again, particularly the ribcage, but then again…. The way you load your body from head to toe impacts pelvic floor function every hour of every day, and no amount of targeting can compensate for habitual improper loading. Bad news and good news right? There’s a better way.
Have you been told your pain will just get worse?
“Get a belly band” is often the only advice my clients are given by their care providers when mild to severe musculoskeletal pain presents in pregnancy. While this can be good advice, the belly band-aid does not address the root of the problem. Gentle corrective exercises and minute lifestyle adjustments can greatly reduce or even eliminate pelvic pain before your baby is born.
Are you ready to think about movement in a new way?
I fell in love with movement when I realized that it is as essential an input for my body as food, and that like food it should bring me joy. It should come in wide variety and be broadly distributed throughout my day. It should feel so good that I seek and welcome it—rather than avoid and resent it, or box it into an hour a day. I should be feeding my pinky toe, the muscles that make my hair stand on end, my eyes and face muscles, as much as I should be feeding my biceps and hip rotators. Joy in the pinky toe is next level stuff.
Story of a Smile
There was a time I thought I’d never run again. I wondered what it even would feel like to stand still without pain. That was after the birth of my first child. Fast forward to this picture—that’s me running toward my second child before swooping her up in the air. That’s me! Running and twisting, and yes, smiling.
My study of biomechanics and natural movement, especially under Katy Bowman and the Nutritious Movement model, healed my own body and drives me to help other women prevent or heal the dysfunctions that sometimes accompany pregnancy and recovery from childbirth. It isn’t your fault. But there’s a clear path forward. And I could smile all day about that.
The Born to Move Recipe
Initial Assessment
We’ll look at your movement patterns—especially the way you like to stand, sit, and walk. This will inform us about what parts of your body are moving well, and which parts we need to invite to the party via corrective exercises and day-to-day adaptations.
Restorative Exercise
You’ll leave your initial appointment and all other sessions with a detailed, clear program of corrective exercises, customized for your body right now. This is homework you won’t regret doing.
Time to Move
Everything we do together is intended to help you move with greater ease in your daily life. You will reap the highest benefit from our exercises when you are also focusing on moving in new ways. We’ll strategize about what this may look like in the context of your work and family routines.
Not in Lexington? Ask me about my remote video consults!
Whole Body Pregnancy
- 90 minute initial assessment and training
- Three 60-minute follow-up sessions prenatally or postpartum
- Customized slide deck detailing your prenatal and postpartum movement plan, updated as we work together
- Equipment for all assigned exercises
- Regular email follow-up to keep tabs on your questions and keep you moving!
$400
Who's This For?
You want to stack the cards in your favor for a pain-free pregnancy, a smooth labor, and a breezy recovery. We’re going to dive deep but also keep things simple: you’ll learn so much about your body and how to move it well that you’ll be on course for not only a better pregnancy, but a better life.
Movin’ Mama
- 90 minute initial assessment and training
- Two 60-minute follow-up sessions
- Customized slide deck detailing your movement plan, updated as we work together
- Equipment for all assigned exercises
- Regular email follow-up to keep tabs on your questions and keep you moving!
$300
Who's This For?
You want to move better through motherhood, preventing or repairing the typical aches that come from breastfeeding, baby wrangling, or being up at night. You don’t have a lot of extra time for “exercise!” The secret is using the movements you already have to do every day in your favor; learn how to do them well, and how to stack other essential movements into your existing schedule. Feel free to bring your kids along to our visits!
Initial Assessment and Training
- 90-minute assessment and training
- Customized slide deck detailing your movement plan, to get you off to a great start
- Equipment for required exercises
$135
Who's This For?
Whether you are planning to be pregnant, pregnant already, holding a newborn, or just looking to move in more and better ways, an initial assessment will help you discover your body’s best path forward.
Fetal Positioning Consult
- 90-minute in-home consultation
- Info on birthing rights and options; risks/benefits of external version, and of breech vaginal birth.
- Whole body approach to fetal positioning.
- In-person demonstration of Spinning Babies® techniques
- Referrals to trusted body workers trained in fetal positioning (chiro, acupuncture, massage)
- Equipment necessary to do recommended exercises
- Email and phone follow-up
$135
Who's This For?
I love walking and my family bonds best when walking. So, having hip pain that kept making my walking distance shorter and shorter was not good. I tried to figure it out on my own by reading and watching videos but there was no improvement. I had one session with Meredith, she gave me several specific exercises to do at home, all very manageable. I had a few weeks before my husband and I took a little vacation together and I knew there would be lots of walking both in the woods and in town. I really wanted to be able to do all the walking and not have to miss out on things or be in pain! It worked! I hiked in the woods, I walked through town, hours of walking for a few days and zero hip pain!
I often have neck pain and assumed I was sleeping incorrectly and succumbing to heredity arthritis. After one session with Meredith, I learned movements and exercises that were easing my pain and giving me more range of motion. I not only feel a noticeable difference, I am more conscious of my body’s positioning in both a rest and active state. I was also fascinated with her approach from the start explaining the physiology and evolution of the body and how that relates to my daily routine.
