When Can You Return to Running After Birth? A Physio Guide

When Can You Return to Running After Birth?

If you’ve recently had a baby and you’re wondering when it’s safe to lace your running shoes back up, you’re asking exactly the right question, and one we get asked all the time in the clinic. Running is a great form of cardio. It elevates the heart rate, is time efficient, gives a strong endorphin rush and mood boost, is cost effective, and can be done solo or as part of a community group.

When it comes to the postnatal period, returning to exercise safely, including returning to running, can be a tricky journey to navigate. Done incorrectly, it can create more harm than good, contributing to low back, pelvic girdle, or hip pain, or pelvic floor symptoms such as bladder or bowel leakage.

So when is the right time to start? How quickly can you build up your distance and speed? And how do you know if you’re pushing your body too hard?

These are all questions a physiotherapist experienced in women’s health can help you answer.

Why an Individualised Approach Matters

The most important point to remember when you wish to return to running after birth, is that an individualised approach is essential. There are general guidelines available, but just as every pregnancy, labour, and birth experience is different, every postnatal recovery and return-to-impact-exercise journey will look different too.

Regardless of whether you’ve had a caesarean section or a vaginal birth, significant load is placed on the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissue throughout pregnancy, due to the increasing weight of the baby and hormonal changes. It’s therefore important to allow enough time for connective tissue to heal and for the pelvic floor to regain strength before it’s placed under the higher loads that running demands. Running is essentially a series of single-leg hops, with ground reaction forces of approximately 1.6–2.5 times body weight through the pelvic floor and lower body, so preparation matters.

High-impact exercise has been found to carry a 4.59-fold increased risk of pelvic floor dysfunction compared to low-impact exercise in female athletes (De Mattos Lourenço et al., 2018). While this figure is drawn from an athletic population broadly, it highlights the importance of listening to your body and seeking guidance from a trained health professional on the most appropriate time to progress from low- to high-intensity exercise, particularly if you’re experiencing any pelvic floor symptoms such as pain, heaviness, dragging, or incontinence.

When Should You First Have an Assessment?

Current return-to-running guidelines recommend a 6-week postnatal assessment with a specialised women’s health physiotherapist to assess the deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles, receive individualised advice, and get clearance to begin low-intensity exercise. This includes activities such as walking or Mums & Bubs pilates classes, which we run here at Inner Strength Bayside.

Musculoskeletal pain, urinary incontinence, abdominal separation, and pelvic organ prolapse are all prevalent among postnatal runners. For this reason, only low-intensity exercise and strengthening should be undertaken generally for at least 12 weeks postnatal before progressing to higher-intensity exercise such as running, regardless of your previous running experience or fitness level.

A more recent international consensus (Christopher et al., 2024; Deering et al., 2024) has refined this thinking: rather than treating the 12-week mark as a fixed finish line, it frames the early postnatal weeks as a phase of building capacity and load tolerance across six key domains; Recover, Restore, Rebuild, Reframe, Return, and Review – with readiness and gradual, well-managed loading being just as important as the number of weeks that have passed. In practice, this doesn’t change the advice much: most women still won’t be ready to run before around 3 months postnatal, but it reinforces that the calendar alone shouldn’t be the deciding factor. How you progress, and how your body responds, matters as much as when you start.

Before beginning to run, you should be able to complete the following pelvic floor strength benchmarks in standing:

• 10 x fast repetitians
• 8–12 reps of 6–8 second maximal contractions
• 60 seconds of submaximal (30–50%) contraction

How to Get Clearance to Begin Running Safely

Once you’ve completed at least 12 weeks of regular, low-intensity exercise and strengthening, a physiotherapist can guide you through a series of functional tests to assess your readiness to run, including but not limited to:

• Walking 30 minutes continuously
• Single-leg sit-to-stand from a chair
• Jogging on the spot
• Forward bounds

These assessments also help identify any areas of the body that need continued strengthening or monitoring as you progressively build your running distance and return to running after birth. This reduces your likelihood of injury and helps you stay consistently active while rebuilding fitness.

Building Back Up Safely

Our physiotherapists often recommend a structured walk-run program, such as the Couch to 5K app, to safely build running distance and frequency while minimising injury risk. It’s easy to use and can be tailored to your age, running background, and current activity level.

We also recommend:

• A well-fitted pair of running shoes
• Adequate hydration 1–2 hours before running
• Mobility work or stretching after each run

Ready to Return to Running?

If you’re in the postnatal period and thinking about returning to running, or you know someone who is, we’re here to help. Our physiotherapists offer individualised postnatal assessments and can guide you safely from your first pelvic floor check right through to your first run.

Book a postnatal physiotherapy appointment: 📞 Call the clinic on (03) 8555 4099 💻 Or book online here

Evidence behind this article

The recommendations in this article are based on the following key sources:

• Goom, T., Donnelly, G., & Brockwell, E. (2019). Returning to running postnatal – guidelines for medical, health, and fitness professionals managing this population. The original consensus guidelines establishing the 12-week framework and readiness criteria.
• Christopher, S. M., et al. (2024). Clinical and exercise professional opinion of return-to-running readiness after childbirth: an international Delphi study and consensus statement. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 58(6), 299–312.
• Deering, R. E., et al. (2024). Clinical and exercise professional opinion on designing a postpartum return-to-running training programme: an international Delphi study and consensus statement. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 58(4), 183–195.
• De Mattos Lourenço, T., et al. (2018). Urinary incontinence in female athletes: a systematic review. International Urogynecology Journal.

Written by Caitlin Collenette, Physiotherapist