Yoga During Pregnancy

I know lots of mama’s look to join a prenatal yoga class to start doing prenatal yoga during pregnancy. While I do love yoga I also want to share with you some of my professional expert advice when it comes to yoga during pregnancy:

1. Relaxin – a hormone that comes along with pregnancy and helps to relax your ligaments to allow for baby to be birthed through your pelvis. Problem is that relaxin doesn’t just affect your pelvis, it affects all the ligaments in your body. So you do need to be careful to avoid overstretching during pregnancy.
2. Look for a trained fitness professional that is aware of modifications for pregnancy, especially if you are not joining a specific prenatal yoga class.
3. Wear layers, even in non-Bikram classes, a yoga room can heat up fast! While your pregnant body actually could dissipate the heat better than non-pregnant bodies it’s always best to play it safe, so wear layers that can be shed as the room heats up and drink plenty of water to stay hydrated {because de-hydration, especially later on during pregnancy could cause pre-term labor or false early labor}.
4. Avoid any excessive twisting moves as your belly becomes bigger {in part baby will be in the way but I also recommend avoiding twisting through your torso if your hips aren’t moving through the motion with you}.
5. Inversions, while many may say to avoid I recommend to avoid if you haven’t been doing them prior to pregnancy. However, if you are an avid yogi who was doing inversions prior to pregnancy and they feel good for your body then by all means carry on {unless of course your doctor tells you to avoid inversions} just minimize your time spent inverted.
6. Move through a controlled range of motion where you can feel your muscles really activating and not just stretching. I find it very important {especially during pregnancy} plus see amazing benefits to building strength over just stretching. Start thinking about your poses for building strength and continue lengthening as one instead of falling into stretches {remember tip #1, relaxin}.

While my workouts aren’t specific to prenatal yoga you will see some yoga exercises in my workouts to help you stay strong, lengthened and feeling your best throughout pregnancy.