The Pandemic and Pre and Postnatal Women: How to help your clients thrive, during this time.
Continuing to support and empower your pre and postnatal clients during this pandemic is going to take some shifting in how you deliver your services.
This experience is also going to spur you towards taking the best care of yourself, and will challenge your perspective about this situation.
In this post, I am going to help you ease into the following shifts:
- From offering in-person to on-line, virtual sessions.
- Being aware that you are sharing relevant, helpful information from credible sources.
- That the overall attitude you are displaying is honest, yet calm and collected.
Virtual Sessions - How to get your services delivered on-line ASAP
The following is the QUICKEST way to get started online, in teaching your private and group classes LIVE. There are TONS of options out there, but these are the ones I am familiar with, and the ones that I know are free, and easy to start.
1. To get paid, Make sure you have a PayPal Account.
(There are others, such as Venmo, Stripe, and Zelle, to name a few, but Paypal is easy to set up, and get paid ASAP. You don’t have to wait for the money to go through. You get it instantly)
- It will ask you if you want a Business or Personal.
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Business will show your business name
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Personal will show your personal name and email
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Click here for more info on the difference between the two.
2. To deliver your private services, you have 3 options:
1. Sign up for Zoom
- They offer a free service, unlimited session for 1 to 1 meetings - perfect for privates.
- The benefit of this is that you can record your sessions. For the free account, I believe you need to record to your device.
OR
2. You can simply use Facebook Messenger, by going to your client’s name, and clicking the video icon
3. You can also Use your smartphone to do a video chat.
If you know of other video chat software, anything will work. Google Hangouts is another one.
3. To deliver your group sessions:
- Open a private Facebook Group, and deliver either LIVE OR recorded sessions.
What to teach, when your clients don’t have equipment:
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Get back to your mat basics!
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Use March Matness as inspiration - and this is a great opportunity to join in!
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Get creative with standing work, and wall work.
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Use items around the home for props - pillows, towels or belts, kids’ play balls
Tips on Getting Paid:
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Charge the same amount as you would for an in-person private. Your clients are paying for your time. So don’t feel bad about this.
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Now, if a client asks for a discount, I would offer something on-top of the lesson, rather than a discount. So, if you charge $60 a lesson, you could add in the recording (if your using Zoom) for free) rather that discounting your prices.
Click Here for a printable version of this guide
Sharing Credible Sources
The following is an excerpt from the CDC - Center for Disease Control-regarding how COVID-19 (Coronavirus) affects pregnant and postnatal women, including breastfeeding women, and children.
There is not currently information from published scientific reports about susceptibility of pregnant women to COVID-19. Pregnant women experience immunologic and physiologic changes which might make them more susceptible to viral respiratory infections, including COVID-19.
There is no evidence that children are more susceptible to COVID-19. In fact, most confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported from China have occurred in adults. Infections in children have been reported, including in very young children. There is an ongoing investigation to determine more about this outbreak.
The Center for Disease Control
Click here for more detailed information on pregnant and postnatal women and children.
Other credible sources:
- World Health Organization
- Your local health department, for detailed info about your area
Your Overall Attitude
This is going to be one of THE most important aspects of continuing to positively impact your pre and postnatal clients, students, friends, and family.
As the Pilates teacher, you are also seen as the guide, mentor, leader, etc.
Your clients and students rely on you during that one hour session, to guide them in their actions.
And that includes the way you feel (whether you like it or not!)
We want to offer our pre and postnatal clients the best of ourselves; to share our positive energy, so that their sessions can be as stress-free and uplifting as possible, don't you think?
Especially during the pre and postnatal period, you know that hormones cause emotions to rise and fall, more-so than when a women is not pregnant, or breastfeeding.
Research has proven that pregnant and early postnatal women are much more sensitive to the facial expressions of doctors. And that the stress hormone, cortisol, is much more active, naturally. So putting unnecessary emotional stress on a pre or postnatal women can effect her health negatively.
Tips to keeping a positive demeanor:
- Talk to a friend or family member about any fears and uncertainties you have about the situation. Or write it in a journal. Get it out BEFORE your sessions with clients.
- Before your session, spend 5 minutes doing the Star pose, standing and smiling, and breathing in and out, focusing on your out breath.
- Think of 3 simple things to be grateful for in this situation.
- Mine are:
- That I get to be closer to my family;
- that I have the ability to communicate via the internet and share information such as this, from the comfort of my home;
- That I have plenty of food and water
- Mine are:
- If your client shows up nervous, allow her to talk about it for a limited amount of time, and then gently re-direct by helping her to focus on the movement she is doing, or even talking through what you are grateful for, and encouraging her to do the same.
- Use positive, supportive language.
- For example, use the word experience in-place of the words pandemic, tragedy, or disaster.
- Use the word situation in place of Coronavirus.
- Words are super powerful! Fill your sessions with life-giving, non-fear-mongering words!
Thank you for taking the time to learn about this important issue, for the sake of pre and postnatal women.
Please let me know if you have questions, or any other pertinent information about this situation that you feel is important for Pilates teachers to know!
Alison Marsh NCPT