Kasia's 5 favorite benefits of prenatal yoga
The pregnancy journey is a special one, and so is becoming a mother. What I discovered after my two pregnancies, teaching prenatal yoga and working with couples during HypnoBirthing classes, is that the benefits of practicing yoga during pregnancy extend far beyond the pregnancy itself. Yoga not only strengthens you but also provides tools to draw upon when you need extra energy or a sense of calm in the midst of the demands of family life.
Here is a list of my five favorite benefits coming from yoga practice during pregnancy, not in a particular order of priority 😉
1. Releasing common pregnancy pains
It is no secret that yoga is one of the practices midwives or GPs advise during pregnancy when hearing from pregnant women about common pregnancy pains. In prenatal yoga classes, we take care of many of them: lower back pain, breathlessness, cramps, and stiffness around the hips, but also give tips for how to deal with insomnia or a stuffy nose... All are part of the pregnancy journey, yet why not help ourselves if we can... Here is an example of a simple practice that helps us with lower back pain, which we can also easily do at home: a rolling cat.
2. Positioning your baby in the most optimal position for birth
What would you say if I told you that with prenatal yoga, you can help your baby do a big part of the journey which they need to do in order to meet you? In your belly, rather than on the way out? Because you can 😊
It is not only about having your baby with their head down (though if they are stubborn and don’t want to turn, we can also do some things in the class to help them make up their mind 😉). We want our babies with their heads down and with their backs during labor towards the front of our body. Why not help them to be in the most optimal position for birth before the big day?
Poses that are especially beneficial for bringing your baby into the most optimal position for birth are all poses on all fours when you are in the third trimester. You could stay on all fours for half an hour a day, or you could do some prenatal yoga 😉. Check out the Mamamoon app which is full of prenatal yoga sequences that are focusing on baby’s positioning. Or join me on the mat if you are in Amsterdam.
3. Connecting with your body, to be able to recognize what you need when in labor
I remember the first time when I heard a teacher in a yoga class saying, ‘follow your body, connect with your body, do what you feel your body needs right now’. My first reaction was, ‘what?!’. It was not until after Lily’s birth that I understood the meaning of those words and how powerful it is to have this connection with your body. The truth is that with Lily, I managed to ignore part of the labor while watching Netflix, leaning against a coffee table, doing circles with my pelvis because it felt good, especially when surges (contractions) were coming, and using ujjayi breath when I felt I needed some extra focus or strength.
At that time, nobody really told me that those are the things that are extremely helpful when in labor – pelvis movements give us release when contractions come and help us distract ourselves so we don’t block them. Ujjayi breath is one of the breaths we also teach in HypnoBirthing to help with relaxation and to bring some strength when we need it. And leaning against anything in labor, helps our baby to get into the most optimal position for birth. Not to mention that being upright and moving usually helps to speed things up.
You don’t need to have years of yoga practice to feel it. If you start during your pregnancy and you continue with regular practice, you will build that connection with your body, and find trust in yourself to follow what your body tells you. Cause at the end of the day, during labor you will not follow a yoga sequence, but you will follow what it is that your body needs at that moment..
4. Connecting with your breath and relaxation
Those two elements could be treated even separately, but because one has a huge impact on another I decided to put it together 😊
If you are familiar with meditation practice, you will know straight away how powerful it can be to keep your head clear just by following your breath. Without even trying to change it, but only by focusing on your breath with every inhale and every exhale.
Same counts for connecting your breath to every movement, you bring the focus of your mind to your breath, adding movement of your body, which helps you deal with sometimes lengthy hours during labor. In HypnoBirthing, breathing and relaxation practices are the key tools for smooth and calm delivery. Those are also the elements I always bring to my prenatal classes.
- Synchronizing every movement with your breath brings focus.
- Breathing practices before savasana clear our heads.
- Calm breathing, which we use in HypnoBirthing, is essentially the same as golden thread breath from yoga. Focusing on long exhalations is a great start to every relaxation and a practice that we will use as our natural pain killer in labor.
- And then we have final relaxation. We need it always, but especially when we are pregnant we need it more than we even realize. Not only to rest, but to also get ourselves with the feeling of being relaxed, calm and in control. Because that’s also the feeling we want to stay with us during labor.
During birth, we want to keep everything open, avoid any tension or stress, and just be there, trusting that our body and our baby know what to do. You can train this feeling as well with relaxation practice.
5. Building up your self-care practice
You must have heard of the saying 'happy mommy, happy baby’. It’s true. Yet when we become moms, we often forget about it. We forget to take care of ourselves. And often easily get impacted by the change that comes with becoming a parent, which is a big change! It’s one of the most beautiful things that you may experience in your life, but hey, it’s not a walk in the park! It’s hard to be a mom. Your life turns upside down from one day to another. What you’ve known up until now is simply different. You are different.
What helped me tremendously during this journey twice already is having this one thing which doesn’t change. And that is me stepping on the mat. My practice changed, yes. When pregnant I had to adapt many poses, skip some, and add new ones which otherwise I wouldn’t even try. But if you don’t focus on the poses, my practice stayed pretty much the same: I stepped on the mat, moved with my breath, and had this happy feeling at the end that I did something for myself. Same after labor. Thanks to building up my practice when pregnant, it was natural to start missing it when my babies were already with me. One of the happiest moments after both labors was when I could practice again.
Because it was again doing something I knew, something that didn’t change. My mat was the same, I moved with my breath and had this happy feeling at the end that I did something for myself.
Enhancing Comfort to Maximize Yoga Benefits
Comfort during pregnancy plays a significant role in your willingness and ability to engage in regular activities like yoga. When you feel at ease in your body, you're more eager to step onto the mat, move with your breath, and embrace the physical and mental benefits that yoga offers during pregnancy. Therefore I fully support Feelou on their mission, to bring more comfort to women. A high-quality maternity bra from Feelou can make a world of difference.
About the Author:
Kasia Pokrop has been actively working in the women's health area since 2018, specializing in pregnancy and postpartum. She is teaching pregnancy yoga, HypnoBirthing and Spinning Babies in Amsterdam, and online. She is also a mother of two, and a founder at Mamamoon app - an interactive birth & postpartum preparation coach.