The Benefits of Prenatal Yoga
Yoga is the most recommended and truly ideal form of exercise for pregnant women. Practicing yoga while pregnant can help physically increase flexibility, spaciousness and strength and decrease pain, pressure and swelling. Emotionally, it can create confidence and calmness, and reduce fear and anxiety. By addressing and connecting the physical body with the emotional mind, women can better adjust to all of the rapid changes happening inside of them during pregnancy, embrace and birth consciously, and feel more prepared for the biggest and most exciting challenge of all: motherhood.
The definition of yoga is union: to unite or connect the mind, body and spirit. When we join or connect all the dots, we end up feeling more whole and more deeply connected to ourselves and to others. Because of this connection, yoga naturally heightens the state of receptivity, enhancing an expectant mother’s capacity to listen deeply, see clearly, and connect to both herself and the baby or babies growing inside of her.
‘Fetal Origins’, the study of the long-term effects of the gestational period on the fetus, shows that the physical and emotional state of an expectant mother during her pregnancy has a profound effect on the baby from birth and throughout adulthood. Pioneers of this research assert that the nine months of gestation are the most consequential period of our lives, permanently influencing the wiring of the brain and the functioning of the organs as well as shaping our susceptibility to disease, our appetite, metabolism, intelligence and temperament. With everything from cancer to depression being linked back to the gestational period, it is more evident than ever that yoga can have huge and long reaching benefits for both the woman and her baby.
A primary benefit of prenatal yoga is learning to breathe. Developing breath control and awareness is perhaps, the most useful and important tool for an expectant mother. By linking the breath with movement, every pose in yoga becomes an opportunity to practice and hone that skill.
Benefits of deep and conscious breathing:
- Calms the mind
- Releases fear
- Directs the labor by being able to stay with intense sensation instead of backing away or fleeing
- Shortens the duration of labor, because this deep breathing allows the woman to stay with sensation
Yoga poses, or asanas, play a key role in easing discomfort during pregnancy and also preparing the physical body for birth. Research done by Dr. James Clapp III, author of Exercising Through Your Pregnancy, shows that active women have improved births. He says “Women who have a regular (5-6 times a week) routine of prolonged (30-90 minutes) exercise have fewer physical discomforts and also have easier, shorter and less complicated labors with less medical intervention, like pain relief, pitocin and episiotomies, and recovered faster.” Because yoga is active, but without accelerated heart rates or jarring movements, it is one of the most recommended forms of exercise for pregnant women.
Benefits of yoga postures:
- Reduces general aches and pains, tightness, and restriction
- Creates spaciousness and opening
- Relieves sciatica, indigestion, cramping, and swelling
- Strengthens, tones, and builds stamina
Beyond the breath and asana practice, prenatal classes offer a sense of community. Class time is a time to get in touch with the body, baby and an opportunity to bond with other expectant mothers. Shared experience and shared knowledge empower and strengthen women and lessen feelings of isolation and going at it alone.
A more hidden benefit of prenatal yoga is that the benefits acquired and cultivated during pregnancy extend well beyond just childbirth. Yoga’s teachings prepare a woman not just for childbirth, but also for the demands of parenthood. In the end, parenting requires very much the same skills set as childbirth: presence, patience, intuition, acceptance, and surrender.
Prenatal yoga possesses the power to bring a holistic and integrative balance to women. When receptivity is high, state of being is in balance, and a woman is deeply grounded and fully present in her truest self, she is fully equipped to embrace pregnancy, consciously birth her baby, and meet the challenges of her new journey into motherhood.