Lara Morgan Lee, MD

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Lara Morgan Lee, MD

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02/01/2026

Cleared… for what? How much? How often? When? What if “X” happens??

The truth is our current medical clearance answers safety.

It does not answer performance, capacity, or readiness for the physical demands of your real life.

As a sports medicine physician, this is the gap I help my patients and clients with every day in postpartum care.

You were cleared because:
✔️ nothing dangerous is happening
✔️ tissues are healing
✔️ you’re allowed to move

You were not assessed for:
• load tolerance
• strength asymmetry
• balance and coordination
• musculoskeletal adaptations (like diastasis)
• impact readiness
• how motherhood itself changes recovery timeliness
• your short and long term physical goals or needs for life, work or sport

That’s why so many moms are “cleared” yet still:
– leak
– feel weak or unstable
– get injured returning to exercise
– have pain
– think their body is broken
– feel confused
– quit…

You’re not broken.

You’re untrained for the demand you’re asking of everything that comes .

📍Action step:
If your return to exercise plan is “listen to your body” with no progression, you’re missing the game plan.

We ca do so much better- postpartum guidance rooted in sports medicine, not vague reassurance.

Motherhood is high-performance.
Your recovery should be too 🫶🏼🩵

01/30/2026

Time alone doesn’t determine readiness.

Function does.

In postpartum care, timelines are helpful, but they don’t tell the whole story.

Being “healed” doesn’t mean the body is prepared for load, movement, or impact.

Readiness is something we can evaluate, not guess.

This is a sports medicine model… this is return to play we do with every athlete.

For moms, that includes looking at:

✔️How your symptoms respond to daily demands and exercise
✔️ Your core and pelvic floor coordination at baseline and under load
✔️ The strength, endurance, and fatigue tolerance you had and need for your goals

⚡️This is your capacity for real life, not just you on the exam table

🩵 When we move beyond the calendar and assess function, postpartum care becomes more precise, more supportive, and more effective.

Safety is the foundation.

Capacity is the goal.

Did you feel assessed for your “real life” postpartum? If not- what hurt? What was missed? What did you want to understand better?

01/28/2026

“Pelvic floor safe” isn’t a medical plan.

It’s a marketing phrase.

Your pelvic floor doesn’t need “safe.”

It needs understanding, context, load, timing, and progression.

As a sports medicine physician, I see this all the time, fear-based language. And frankly it is wildly confusing for so many women.

Pregnancy and postpartum care shouldn’t be simply about avoidance.

It should move toward strength, awareness and capacity.

If this reframes how you think about your body, good.

That’s the point.

01/27/2026

Postpartum care measures safety.
 But safety is not the same as readiness.

At 6 weeks postpartum, we ask: ✔️ Is bleeding controlled? ✔️ Is infection risk low? ✔️ Is tissue healing?
 Important. Crucial. Necessary.
 But let me be very clear on this… incomplete.

What we don’t measure is what actually determines a mother’s return to life: • Strength • Confidence • Capacity

In sports medicine, we don’t clear an athlete because they’re no longer injured.

Let me say that again… we would never say you hurt your knee? Cool go back at 6 weeks, listen to your body it’ll know what to do next…

WHAT 🤯
 We clear athletes because they’ve demonstrated the ability to tolerate load, recover, and progress.

This is the standard return to play in sports medicine.

Motherhood is no different. 
It is a physiological demand. It is a physical event. It requires coordination, control, mental capacity. And STRENGTH.

‼️When postpartum care stops at safety, we send women back to full lives without measuring whether their bodies are ready to carry them there.

And that gap? 
That’s where pain, injury, and burnout quietly begin.

We don’t need lower standards for mothers. 
We need better care for everything that happens “next”.

Who’s with me? ⚡️

01/24/2026

Your six week visit is not a finish line. It is not a permission slip to ignore pain, leaking, heaviness, or exhaustion. To start that HIIT class or run 13 miles. It is simply a medical check that you survived pregnancy and birth. Its focus is on healing (as it should be at the start…)

But real recovery is about more than healing.

It’s about load. It is about progression, strength, and knowing what the heck to do with setbacks. It is about respecting the fact that motherhood is a physical event that reshaped your body from the inside out.

If we treated ACL surgery the way we treat postpartum, no one would ever return to sport. Yet moms are told to just get back to normal while carrying a baby, a car seat, and a nervous system on fumes.

You do not need to be tougher or try harder.
You need a plan that understands physiology.

Postpartum is not clearance…
It is not 6 weeks…
It is not a fourth trimester…

It is a starting point.

And you deserve care that matches the demand of your life ⚡️

01/23/2026

Pregnancy is a full-body event.

Recovery deserves more than a six-week check and a “good luck.”

Postpartum deserves a gameplan.

01/22/2026

Postpartum care asks: “Are you healed?”

Sports medicine asks: “Can your body tolerate load, repetition, fatigue, asymmetry, and stress- day after day?”

And let’s be clear: Motherhood isn’t a gentle re-entry.
 It’s carrying, lifting, feeding, rocking, interrupted sleep, emotional labor, and zero recovery windows.

Yet women are told: ✔️ 6 weeks = cleared ✔️ Symptoms = normal ✔️ Struggle = personal failure

The answers?
🎾 Give it time.
🩵 It took 9 months to get here.
🔮Just listen to your body (my personal pet peeve…)

That’s not medicine.

That’s a mismatch between demands and preparation.

You don’t need “motivation.”
 ⚡️ You need progressive, contextual re-conditioning for the job you’re actually doing.

You need a return to play model.

Because motherhood is a physiological load that no area of medicine adequately prepares you for.

Until now

🫶🏼 Dr. Morgan

01/21/2026

I forgot one (read down 👇🏼)

This is such a common question, and something that is often misunderstood on social media.

Diastasis doesn’t always mean mom pooch. And mom pooch doesn’t always mean Diastasis.

Ask me more questions!!! I’m here to help ⚡️

Last one: C-section scars!! As a scar heals it can contract- this can leave a “shelf” above that makes the tissue above “pooch”- I have a reel saved further back on scar care… but tell me if you want more evidence based info here too!!!

Is there anything else you have seen on social media lately about pregnancy or postpartum you wonder “Hey, what would Dr Morgan think about ???”

Send it my way, comment or DM me! 🫶🏼

01/20/2026

Bottom line- the pelvic floor is not a single broken part that needs fixing in pregnancy OR postpartum.

It is one piece of a full system that just went through the biggest physical event of your life.

Postpartum strength is about load, breathing, hips, core, sleep, and nervous system, not squeezing one muscle harder. Ah hem… Kegels or devices or anything that doesn’t fit this move into the bigger picture.

When we treat the body like a whole athlete instead of a one and done pelvis, moms get back to running, lifting, and living THEIR life. And after all, isn’t that what we all want??

This is the real care for what your body actually went through.

01/19/2026

In no other population would we do this.

If an athlete tore an ACL, we wouldn’t say: “Six weeks? Cool, good luck, go run, you’ll figure it out.”

But for mothers we treat pregnancy and birth like a temporary inconvenience instead of a massive physiological event that changes literally every system.

Instead let’s treat it like what it is… a full body athletic feat, a huge trauma to our systems, and a highly physical aftermath that needs support to rebuilt properly to succeed to its highest level.

This is my framework. It’s how I decide whether a mom needs strength, coordination, recovery, simply permission, or a pull back to help prevent future injuries or problems.

So should this post include the answer and a list or a a pdf of “what to do next?” 
The truth? The real answer isn’t a list of exercises.
 It’s a way of thinking.

Instead of handing you a workout. Let’s help you the way a sports physicians help athletes- aka the full return to play- finally feeling confident, supported, guided - so you never feel “cleared” again.

10/16/2025

They were right. I am stronger. 🔥

But the truth is, I was scared.

Would I be able to do it?
Be strong enough?
Carry two babies?
Feel like me again?

By 26 weeks with the twins, I could barely walk a block without pain. I modified everything… but I kept moving however I could.

Then came postpartum—

one tiny movement, building on the next.

Day after day.

That’s how I became stronger than ever.

And that’s how I can help you do it too.

Not by chasing “bounce back” goals…
but by training like an athlete in the season of motherhood.

This is what happens when moms are cared for like athletes. 🔥🧡🫶🏼

PS- whoa looking back at that belly?! I cannot believe it. This video made me really emotional. Our bodies are truly amazing.

Thanks for the inspo on this one PS I want to be on your podcast 🚨

10/09/2025

ICYMI — this conversation is one every mom and clinician should hear 🚨

As I ease back into work life, I wanted to be sure you saw this recent podcast drop.

Because when reached out, I knew I wanted to talk about our shared vision: giving moms the same multidimensional care professional athletes receive- because it’s not luxury, it’s effective care 🔥

This episode dives into what that really looks like and why it matters for long-term recovery, performance, and well-being.

Catch it on your favorite podcast platform and drop your questions below 👇🏼 more of these expert conversations coming soon 🧡

Address

Chicago, IL

Website

http://www.sportsdrmorgan.com/

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