Wellbeing > Age Specific Information > Female > 30 - 40 years old

Female 30 - 40 years old

This page provides general information about health and wellness for females ages 30 - 40 years old, however individual experiences may vary.

During and after pregnancy our hormones go through a dramatic change. These hormones can cause weight gain and abnormal blood sugar levels, and even after giving birth these new hormone levels are maintained for some time.  Achieving or maintaining a healthy weight is made difficult by many factors. The biggest factor is the time and energy required to care for a new baby. This often makes exercise and caring for our own bodies a second priority. It takes time to prepare and eat healthy meals, and time always feels limited. Problems with continence are quite common, and may continue after pregnancy, which may make it difficult or embarrassing to exercise. 

This combination of mental, physical and emotional factors often leads to weight gain. Being overweight at this stage of our lives risks long term, permanent damage to the body. For women especially, weight gain is often linked to the development of depression, type 2 diabetes and osteoarthritis. 

We can prevent weight gain during this time by limiting our intake of alcohol and sugary processed foods, and by engaging in regular physical activity.

Making time to look after your weight is difficult but very important. This will become even more crucial as our bodies continue to age, while the demands of child caring increase.

The hormones associated with pregnancy cause the ligaments, tendons and other connective tissues in our body to soften and become looser. This is a helpful change that allows our belly to grow and our hips to widen to deliver a baby. But these hormones also have unhelpful effects, like making our joints more mobile and unstable.  This softening of connective tissues, and the process of child birth, sometimes also affect our continence, making it difficult to hold in urine when sneezing, coughing, lifting or jumping. 

It is recommended that we perform regular low-moderate impact and resistance exercise during this stage of life. High impact exercise, performed while our joints are soft and unstable, may cause injury, or might worsen the symptoms of incontinence. Exercises that focus on strength are important, as our new baby is going to get bigger, heavier and more active. To avoid over-use injuries we must also increase our strength to match the growing size of our baby.

Tendon and tendon sheath problems are closely linked to strength, fitness and obesity. After having children our priorities shift and we typically become time-poor.  For some women this leads to weight gain and a decrease in physical strength and overall fitness. At the same time our bodies endure heavier loads and more pressure as our kids become heavier and more physically demanding. This simultaneous decrease in physical fitness, increase in body weight, increase in physical work load, and change in hormones creates a perfect environment for tendon and tendon sheath problems to develop.  

The most common locations for tendon pain include the wrist, elbow, shoulder, hips and knees.  These problems can be minimised or prevented to some extent by preventing weight gain, starting new exercise programs very gradually, and getting assistance where needed for repetitive baby handling tasks.  If the pain problem persists, talk to your physiotherapist or doctor about a specific exercise program or other treatments that may help.

The hormonal changes and lifestyle changes of pregnancy and child rearing can also cause changes to our mental health. 

Stress: With the mental and emotional demands of motherhood, our stress levels can often be high during this time. Stress places the body in a chronic inflammatory state, and is linked to weight gain, depression and chronic pain. As mothers of young kids we need to make time for self-care:

• Regular exercise (which helps burn up the stress hormones)
• Do things that make you happy! Schedule something fun into every day.
• Mindfulness and other cognitive behavioural techniques can also be helpful. 

Depression:  Depression can be caused by the sudden changes in hormone levels following child birth. Depression is also related to stress levels, weight gain, decreased physical activity, and the loss of previous work and social activities. (Links to Mental Health, Finding Help?) 

Sleep: Sleep deprivation following childbirth is well recognised, but the mental and physical effects of poor sleep are not as widely discussed. Poor sleep for a prolonged period is a risk factor for many physical and mental conditions, such as depression and obesity. While it may be difficult to control your child’s sleeping patterns, it is important to take your own sleep needs seriously, for the sake of your physical health and your sanity! Please ask your doctor or child health nurse for some strategies before you become desperate for sleep.

While being physically active is good for our health, repeatedly putting our joints and tendons under heavy load or severe strain throughout the working day can lead to the development of overuse injuries. If we have a highly physical job involving heavy lifting, high impact or repetitive work (particularly overhead) it might be a good time to start looking for less physical alternatives.  Perhaps consider a supervising or training role, step into an administrative or managerial role, or explore different careers.