How to onboard postnatal clients with the right intake questions

A good postnatal Pilates intake form does three things: captures the clinical information you need to plan a safe session, respects the emotional reality of early postpartum life, and takes the client between 8 and 12 minutes to complete. Most intake forms manage the first; few manage all three. This post lays out the structure, the wording, and the conditional logic that gets the balance right.

The operational tooling that runs this intake lives on the Junocal for postnatal Pilates teachers page.

The structure

A postnatal intake has six sections, in this order:

1. Contact and basics.
2. Pregnancy and birth history.
3. Postnatal status and symptoms.
4. Medical and surgical history.
5. Mental health and well-being check-in.
6. Consent and waiver.

Each section depends on the previous one's answers. A c-section client sees c-section follow-ups; a vaginal-birth client sees perineal-repair follow-ups. The form is short for the simple cases and detailed for the complex ones.

Section 1: Contact and basics

Standard fields: name, date of birth, address, phone, email, emergency contact, primary care provider name and phone (often a GP or OB).

Optional but useful: how the client found you (referral source, online search, social). This is for your own marketing analytics, not clinical use.

Section 2: Pregnancy and birth history

Most recent birth date. Required. Drives most of the conditional logic downstream.

Birth type. Required. Options: vaginal, vaginal with instruments (forceps / ventouse), c-section, planned c-section, emergency c-section.

For vaginal: follow-up on perineal repair. Options: none / first-degree / second-degree / third-degree / fourth-degree / episiotomy. Optional but valued; clients who know often want it noted.

For c-section: follow-up on weeks since surgery and whether the incision has been cleared by the OB. The 6-week postpartum check is standard; the post-c-section clearance is sometimes deferred to 8 to 12 weeks depending on the OB.

For instrumental: follow-up on any pelvic-floor symptoms specifically (instrumental deliveries are higher-risk for stress incontinence and prolapse).

Number of prior pregnancies and births. Optional. Useful context, never required.

Any pregnancy losses you'd like noted? Optional, free-text. Frame as "if you'd like to share, this gives me helpful context for our work together; you're not required to share."

Section 3: Postnatal status and symptoms

Weeks postpartum. Auto-calculated from the birth date.

Currently breastfeeding? Yes / no / weaning. Drives some scheduling considerations (sessions may need to accommodate feeding breaks for clients in the first 4 to 6 months).

Sleep in a typical 24-hour period. Range: less than 4 hours / 4 to 6 / 6 to 8 / 8+. Honest indicator of recovery readiness.

Energy level (1 to 5). Self-reported. A 1 or 2 suggests starting with shorter sessions and more restorative work.

Current symptoms by body region. Checkbox list with conditional follow-ups:

• Pelvic floor (incontinence, urgency, heaviness, prolapse symptoms): follow-ups on severity and frequency. If any ticked, also surface a question about whether the client has seen a pelvic floor physiotherapist or had a pelvic exam since the birth.
• Diastasis recti (separation of abdominal muscles): follow-up on whether assessed and by whom, and current finger-width separation if known.
• Lower back pain: follow-up on severity, frequency, and triggers (sitting / standing / lifting baby).
• Hip pain: similar follow-ups.
• Neck and shoulder pain: often related to breastfeeding posture; follow-up on whether feeding-related.
• Wrist or thumb pain: De Quervain's tendinopathy is common postnatal; useful to capture.
• Pelvic girdle pain (pubic symphysis or sacroiliac): follow-up on whether present during pregnancy.

The checkbox-with-follow-ups pattern means the symptom-free client (rare in early postpartum, but it happens) sees just the checkbox; the symptomatic client sees the right detail surfaced.

Section 4: Medical and surgical history

Surgical history. Free-text list with date columns. Surfaces only if the client answers yes to "any surgical history apart from c-section if applicable?" Common entries: hernia repair, gallbladder, appendix, prior gynaecological surgery.

Current medications. Free-text. Most postnatal clients are on iron supplements, vitamin D, and sometimes anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication. Not all of this is clinically relevant for Pilates, but a complete picture matters for session planning.

Other relevant medical conditions. Conditional on "any chronic conditions you want me to know about?" Common ones to surface: hypermobility / Ehlers-Danlos (postpartum hormonal changes often exacerbate), thyroid (postpartum thyroiditis is common), gestational diabetes (resolved or ongoing), pre-eclampsia history.

Section 5: Mental health and well-being check-in

This is the section that requires the most care. The goal is to give the client space to mention emotional well-being without making the intake feel like a mental-health assessment.

The single question that works:

"How are you feeling emotionally since the birth? (Optional.)"

Free-text response. No required answer. Below the field, a single optional checkbox: "I'd like to talk about this in our session."

That's it. Two more things:

A short note (italicised, below the question): "I'm a Pilates teacher, not a mental health professional. If you're struggling with postnatal depression or anxiety, your GP, health visitor, or services like PANDAS (UK) and Postpartum Support International (US) are there to help."

A footer reminder, displayed once at the end of the form: "If you've ticked 'I'd like to talk about this in our session', I'll bring it up gently at the start of our first session and only as much as you want."

The point is to acknowledge that the emotional landscape of early postpartum life affects the physical work, give the client agency to mention it, and signal that you take this seriously without overreaching into clinical territory you're not trained for.

Section 6: Consent and waiver

Three things, each with e-signature:

Consent to physical contact. "I consent to manual cueing and physical adjustment as part of Pilates instruction, and understand I can decline or stop any physical contact at any time." For postnatal work, hands-on cueing is often part of the session; explicit consent is appropriate.

Waiver of liability for inherent exercise risk. Standard language acknowledging that physical exercise carries inherent risks. Practitioner-defined depending on your insurance requirements.

Data handling acknowledgement. What data you hold, where it's stored, who has access, and the client's GDPR rights (if UK or EU) or equivalent. Plain English.

Conditional logic: a worked example

A client books a postnatal 60-minute session. She enters the intake form.

• Section 1: She fills in basics.
• Section 2: Birth date is 12 weeks ago. Birth type: c-section. Conditional follow-up appears: incision check date, OB clearance for exercise.
• Section 3: Weeks postpartum auto-calculates to 12. She ticks pelvic floor symptoms (mild stress incontinence) and back pain. The pelvic floor follow-ups appear (severity, pad use). She has not seen a pelvic floor PT; the form notes this for your reference but doesn't require it.
• Section 4: She lists thyroid medication (postpartum thyroiditis). The free-text field captures it.
• Section 5: She writes a sentence: "Mostly okay, some hard nights. Don't need to talk about it but wanted to mention."
• Section 6: She signs the three consents.

Total form completion time: 8 to 10 minutes. You see the intake before the session and plan accordingly: prioritise core stability and gentle pelvic floor work, build slowly given the c-section history, acknowledge briefly at the start of the session that she mentioned the emotional piece without pushing.

The right tooling

The operational requirements for postnatal intake specifically:

• Conditional logic. The single biggest functional requirement. Without it, the form either over-asks (long form for everyone) or under-asks (missing detail for the clients who matter).
• Required-before-booking enforcement. The first session is not scheduled until intake is complete. Most clients accept this readily; the rare exception (a client who refuses to complete intake before booking) is the rare client you do not want.
• Sensitive-section handling. Mental-health and pregnancy-loss fields should be optional individually and ideally collapsible in your operator view so you do not see the detail unless you intend to.
• E-signature support. Required for the consent and waiver section.
• Re-attestation prompt at 12 months. Pregnancies happen, surgeries happen, symptoms change. The form should re-prompt automatically.

Junocal Starter at $39/month handles all of these. The full case for postnatal-tuned booking and intake lives on Junocal for postnatal Pilates teachers. 14-day free trial, no card; pricing on /pricing.

A postnatal intake form done well is a small piece of professional infrastructure that pays off in two ways: better-planned first sessions (because you know what the client needs before she walks in), and a paper trail your insurer will ask for if a session goes wrong. The form is one of the under-appreciated marketing assets too; clients who experience a thoughtful intake form often mention it to other postnatal mothers in their network as a signal that you take the work seriously.