The 4th Trimester: What Postnatal Healing Really Looks Like

The “4th trimester” is the first 12 weeks after giving birth, a powerful, emotional, and often overwhelming transition as your body begins to recover and your nervous system adapts to caring for your newborn. While the world celebrates the baby, this season is truly about the mother too. Her healing. Her regulation. Her ability to feel grounded and cared for again.

Postnatal chiropractic care offers mothers in Oakland Park a path toward restoration during this tender time. Dixon Chiropractic walks alongside women through this significant chapter, helping them reconnect with their bodies — physically and emotionally —as they navigate the demands of new motherhood.

What Happens To The Body During Postpartum

During pregnancy, your body undergoes major shifts in hormones, posture, soft-tissue tension, and pelvic stability. After birth (even if the delivery went smoothly), your body is still experiencing significant changes:

• Pelvic instability or tailbone pain from ligament stretching and birth positioning
• Neck, shoulder, and upper back strain from breastfeeding and holding your newborn
• Lingering pressure in the low back or hips as your body relearns how to move without a baby inside
• Emotional stress, increased anxiety, and sleep deprivation are affecting your nervous system’s ability to regulate

That’s why we often hear moms say they didn’t expect recovery to feel harder than pregnancy. Your body is healing, recalibrating, and protecting itself, all while you pour every ounce of energy into your baby. The physical toll doesn’t end at delivery. It continues as you adapt to the constant feeding, holding, and sleepless nights that define the 4th trimester.

How Chiropractic Supports New Mothers

Postpartum chiropractic care is gentle, protective, and intensely regulating. It’s not about forceful adjustments. Instead, it focuses on reconnecting your nervous system, allowing your body to heal, stabilize, and release accumulated stress.

This type of care provides gentle pelvic realignment to restore balance and mobility after birth and addresses neck and upper back discomfort from feeding positions and constant baby holding.

The work calms your nervous system, helping reduce anxiety, overwhelm, and physical tension that builds during those early weeks. Proper neurological activation improves core and pelvic floor function (beyond just “doing the exercises”). Whether you had a vaginal delivery or C-section, this approach meets you where you are in your recovery.

“When mothers receive the care they need during the postpartum period, everything shifts,” says Dr. Dixon. “Your baby depends on your health, your energy, and your ability to regulate yourself. When mothers are nurtured and restored, babies thrive.”

Our approach honors your pace. There’s no rush, no pushing your body past what it’s ready for. Healing takes time, and your recovery deserves the same attention you give your newborn.