Blog
Definitely talk to your healthcare provider before practicing yoga and take what I say as my personal experience only. If it inspires you, do your research and explore more for yourself.
Prenatal yoga is a beautiful way to strengthen and stretch the mind and body throughout pregnancy. Practicing regularly will help ease tension that comes up in the body as well as help prepare the mind to navigate birth with grace and focus.
I became extremely passionate about teaching prenatal yoga after the birth of my son. Both of my birth experiences were beautiful, however I blew myself away with the intention I had for my second birth.
Birth isn’t something we can have the attitude of ‘okay, I’ve just been pregnant for months and now here I am!’ We have to ACTIVELY participate in our pregnancy in preparation for birth similar to training for a marathon.
Ways we can train:
•Asana-poses/the physical practice.
-stretching. We all know how tight and tense the body can get from carrying around those extra pounds in the belly. Our whole body responds! When we take the time to lengthen the back of our legs we notice less back pain and Charlie horses. We also want to look at the many hours labor typically lasts. We want to have the flexibility to open our body to birth our baby. Poses like badhakonasa (butterfly) or parsvottanasana (pyramid) are excellent poses to bring length in the body.
-strengthening poses. When we have that extra weight we are carrying around WITHOUT the added support, our body suffers. We need to have the leg and core strength to support the pregnant body. Then when it comes to training for birth, we need to have the cardio for endurance and the strength for holding the body in positions during birth for long periods of time. My favorite strengthening poses (or birth-prep poses as I like to call them) are Uktaka Konasana/Goddess Pose and the Virabadrasana/Warrior poses.
•Meditation
When our mind is clear we can show up from the state that we choose to be in rather than the fear that comes from overthinking.
•Visualization
If you were to take one minute of every day to visualize the outcome you WANT to see-with your pregnancy, birth, or any other goals you have- don’t you think you would be showing up every day more in alignment with those ideals? YES!! The power of visualization is so real. Think about the perfect outcome, visualize it every day, then surrender and let go!! That last step is important because we all know that birth is out of our control! BUT when we visualize what we WANT then we show up in a way that is going to support that more than what could happen when we get caught up in our fear.
•Gratitude
Having a gratitude practice keeps the heart and mind happy. When we are happy pregnancy and birth is much easier and we enjoy life more!! Write down ten things every day that you are grateful for and why.
•Pranayama/Breathwork
Our breath is a huge factor to keeping our mind in check and our emotions calmly collected. During labor if our breath is short and shallow, our body is tense. When we can lengthen and deepen our breath, we can teach our body to relax. When we can relax our face and shoulders during contractions, they feel so much more manageable than when we are tense. THIS was a huge part for my peacefully powerful birth experience-learning to relax into the contraction rather than let it take me over.
Some additional benefits of prenatal yoga:
•reduce stress and anxiety
•open the mind to possibility
•connect with baby in the womb
•enjoy the much needed, deserved time to yourself
•connect with other mommas going through the same thing
If you are interested in trying out prenatal yoga please contact me!!
Namaste 🙏
Love and blessings,
Megan 🙂