Today I speak with Paulina Ioannidou, a former MMA athlete, PhD student in Cologne, Germany, owner of a physio facility, and mom. She educates on female athletes, as well as cultural differences of pregnant and postpartum athletes. She last competed in 2019 and then got pregnant with her son, who is now 3. Her own search for information about activity during pregnancy lead her to research how different cultures handle athletic pregnancies.   Paulina shares about pregnancy and postpartum in Germany and what it’s like to get physiotherapy.  We talk about: -being a professional MMA athlete -lack of information about exercise and pregnancy -postpartum information in Germany -improving education  -diastasis recti -setting realistic expectations -returning to activity Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 6:01 searching for information on active pregnancies 10:19 social media backlash 15:58 pregnancy care in Germany 22:15 getting women care earlier 26:45 how patients find Paulina 29:05 expectations versus reality 34:15 biggest challenges for postpartum moms 40:01 returning to activity postpartum 46:10 talking about possible scenarios 48:00 rapid fire questions CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH PAULINA IG: https://www.instagram.com/paulina.balboa/ Website: https://www.pi-physio.de/ The Active Mom Postpartum Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to Postpartum for active moms & the postpartum professionals who help them in their journey. This show has been a long time in the making! You can expect conversation with moms and postpartum professionals from all aspects of the industry. If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST! If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)