Client factors are the body functions, structures, and personal experiences that influence daily life. Postpartum recovery may involve pain, fatigue, hormonal changes, or emotional challenges, while infants develop feeding, sensory, and motor skills.

How OT Helps: OT addresses these factors with individualized interventions such as safe movement, scar and pain management, energy conservation, and infant feeding and play support.

Performance skills are the everyday actions of moving, thinking, and connecting. After birth, safe lifting, organization, and social interaction may feel harder, while infants are developing motor, process, and social skills of their own.

How OT Helps: OT builds these skills through safe movement strategies, core and pelvic recovery, adaptive equipment, problem-solving tools, bonding strategies, and developmental play for infants.

Performance patterns are the habits, routines, roles, and rituals that structure family life. Birth often disrupts exercise, sleep, and social rituals while introducing new caregiving routines and roles.

How OT Helps: OT helps families design realistic, restorative routines that balance caregiving with self-care, support infant feeding and sleep patterns, and adapt roles and rituals for family well-being.health, bonding, and overall family well-being.

Contexts are the physical, social, cultural, personal, and time-based environments that shape daily life. Home setup, support systems, traditions, health history, and postpartum timing all affect recovery and parenting.

How OT Helps: OT adapts care to each family’s unique context—modifying environments, building support systems, integrating cultural values, and guiding strategies for each stage of postpartum life.