Prenatal and Postnatal Massages : Are they worth it? My review and weight loss with Post Natal Massage Singapore

I never believed in how essential prenatal and postnatal massages were until I encountered them myself. Here's why, and my Post Natal Massage Singapore review of their services for both prenatal and post-delivery.

My experience with Post Natal Massage Singapore

Are prenatal massages worth it?

If you suffer from aches and water retention during pregnancy, then I would definitely think so.

Benefits of prenatal massage:

• To reduce lower hip and back pain
• Improve blood circulation
• Reduce swelling
• Reduce leg cramps

In my case, they really helped me. When I was pregnant, I initially didn't want to spend money on prenatal massages since I was trying to save up for post-delivery expenses. However, I suffered from the following during my pregnancy:

• severe water retention (it hurt just to walk because of how swollen my feet and ankles were. It was so bad that some of my friends even asked me to check with my gynae if I had pre-eclampsia, since swollen feet is one of the symptoms)
• recurring tailbone aches(these came in the later part of my second trimester, and made it extremely uncomfortable to even sit or lie down. Imagine living through 5 months of tailbone aches that hardly go away! Sometimes getting my husband to massage the spot helped, albeit momentarily. I later found out that the aches were due to my uterus contracting, as my contractions during labour felt the same way)

I thus signed up for three sessions with Post Natal Massage Singapore (PNSG) to get some help. Each massage session helped to reduce the tailbone ache and my stiff muscles, such that I always had uninterrupted sleep during the night after. For the water retention, the massages helped to make my legs look human again after the session and for the rest of the night, but the swelling would return the next morning as my condition was quite persistent.

Here's some photos to show documenting my experience with Prenatal Massage Singapore:

Prenatal Massage Singapore review

For the sessions, PNSG's therapists would come to my house and all I had to prepare was 2 large towels and 2 small ones. They laid a waterproof sheet on my bed, and then the blankets, and I would lie on top of the blankets while they did the massage.

Each session lasted about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes on average.

I really appreciated the house visits, as I did another prenatal massage with Beauty Mums Babies (BMB) with a friend and we had to go down to their outlet in town for it. When you're in your third trimester of pregnancy, it gets harder and more inconvenient to move around while you carry a heavy belly! I definitely preferred the home visits by PNSG instead.

Post natal Jamu massage : DEFINITELY NEEDED!

Benefits of post-natal massage:

• Helps restore body back to pre-pregnancy shape
• Improves lactation and reduces breast engorgement
• Speeds up womb recovery to position the uterus
• Reduce post-surgery swelling and water retention

You know how some women seem to slim down so effortlessly without even needing any help? Some say breastfeeding is the secret, but trust me, it doesn't work for everyone. Talk to more mothers and you'll soon come to realise that not every body is made the same; some people can lose their pregnancy weight and flab through breastfeeding, but the rest of us can't.

Unfortunately, I belonged to the latter group.

Me at 38 weeks pregnant. Thank goodness I made it to the Orchard Road Christmas light-up in time,
for baby Nate broke his waterbag the following night and I've been in confinement ever since!

I got pretty big when I was pregnant and by the middle of my third trimester, many aunties thought I was already close to delivering. When I visited a friend of mine at the hospital after she delivered her baby, even her mother exclaimed that I was bigger than her daughter at full term!

Everyone kept telling me that after I give birth, my tummy will deflate and I'll go down to looking as though I'm 5 months pregnant, but that wasn't the case. As you can see from my photo above and the top photo in this article, I looked almost the same a few days before and after delivery. My belly had barely even deflated!

It was obvious I needed help.

PNSG assigned Mdm Salamah to help me, and we started my massage 3 days after I was discharged from the hospital. At the end of each session, herbs were applied on my belly and I had to wear a red binder for 6 - 8 hours (I ended up wearing it for 12 hours on average each day instead).

Expect to fart A LOT, on top of increased lochia discharge, after each massage session.

That shows that the massage has worked, and that the binder is helping to dispel the wind in your tummy so that it'll deflate soon.

One downside of the binder is that you might develop a heat rash like I did, since I was in confinement and was perspiring a lot due to the herbal soups that I was drinking. However, that's a small price to pay for vanity, if you asked me.

Cleared my engorged boobs and blocked ducts so that my breastmilk could flow.

At the beginning of my massage sessions (which coincided with the first week of my breastfeeding journey), I also suffered from engorged boobs due to blocked ducts, and my therapist Mdm Salamah helped to clear them with her lactation massage. I've not had engorged boobs ever since.

Helped to deflate my pregnancy belly.

I initially signed up for 7 sessions, but my tummy still wasn't as flat as I had hoped for, so my husband encouraged me to extend to 10 sessions for more visible results. You can see my weight loss transformation here:

Post Natal Massage Singapore review

The results speak for themselves.

I was assigned three therapists in total throughout my entire journey with PNSG - Mdm Flora, Mdm Salamah and Mdm Rena.

If I only got to try one therapist, you could argue that perhaps I lucked out and got a good one, but the fact is that I tried three different masseurs and they were all equally skilful, professional, and effective. Most importantly, they helped me with my tailbone aches (I no longer suffer from them), severe water retention (my legs look human once more), dispelled the wind in my tummy (that caused it to deflate and go down), and thus my eventual weight loss.

I looked forward to every massage session.

Mdm Salamah and her skilful hands.

At the end of my last session, Mdm Rena also gave baby Nate a massage,
and taught us how to do it on our own on a regular basis as well.

Here are my (now human) legs again, taken two days after my 10 sessions with PNSG ended:

I also took a selfie with each of their therapists who served me, so I could write them a review and recommend them to more people:

With Mdm Flora, who served me when I was pregnant and
did a wonderful job especially with my tailbone aches.

With Mdm Salamah, who helped me with her lactation massage and got my belly to go down.

With Mdm Rena, who cured my water retention issues for good.
They've not plagued me ever since.

Disclosure: I was sponsored by Post Natal Massage Singapore (PNSG) for a portion of my massage sessions, but all opinions are that of my own, and I'll leave the photos / results to speak for themselves on the effectiveness of the sessions. I hope this prenatal and Post Natal Massage Singapore review helps you in deciding which one to choose for your prenatal massage and post natal massage!