Prenatal yoga is a great preparation for childbirth. The poses strengthen and open those areas of the body that are involved in labor, while minimizing pregnancy aches and pains and helping you to sleep more deeply.
10. Pranayama: Deep, slow breathing, in and out through the nose, helps to keep you calm and relaxed during the potential stresses of pregnancy. It is also a great form of pain management for labor.
9. Child’s Pose and Puppy Pose: Gets the weight of the baby off your pelvic floor, helps calm the mind and slow the heart rate. Separate your knees to make room for your belly, and place a pillow or cushion underneath your chest for support and comfort.
8. Urdhva Hastasana: Upward Salute is energizing and refreshing. Stand straight and tall with your pelvis tucked under. Sweep your arms up to the ceiling and then back to your sides, lifting your chest and pointing the crown of your head toward the ceiling. Repeat as many times as feels good.
7. Vrksasana: Tree Pose keeps you balanced and centered. Have a chair or wall nearby in case you feel unstable. Tuck your pelvis underneath to counteract that pregnancy-induced lordosis.
6. Utkatasana: Chair pose keeps your lower body toned and strong during pregnancy. Separate your legs wider than hip distance and place your elbows just above your knees, with hands in prayer position, to support your upper body.
5. Virabhadrasana I and II: The warrior poses are wonderful for strengthening the muscles of the lower body while creating openness in the chest and torso. Take a shorter stance than usual, and use your kegel muscles to help tone your perineum.
4. Sukhasana: This “easy pose” is a great starting point for some gentle spinal twists, side bends, and deep breathing.
3. Baddha Konasana: The Bound Angle Pose, or butterfly, is a gentle hip and inner thigh stretch which helps relieve tired, achy legs. Just make sure you sit up straight on top of the sitting bones.
2. Malasana: or less poetically, squatting, is also a great preparatory pose for childbirth. It opens the pelvis and helps prevent leg cramps. Women traditionally gave birth in a squatting position, as opposed to flat on their backs, because it helps the baby descend into the pelvis and shortens the birth canal. Make sure to practice your kegels while performing this pose, to strengthen and increase blood flow to the pelvic muscles.
1. Cat – Cow is the best prenatal yoga move you can do! It takes the weight of the baby off your pelvic floor, which helps prevent a later prolapse. Most pelvic floor damage is caused during pregnancy, not during labor as you might assume. Those poor muscles are holding up a lot of weight for months and months, and they get all stretched out and weak. There is a reason why four-legged mammals don’t end up with pelvic floor damage, incontinence, or uterine prolapse: their uterus is placed in front of, instead of on top of, the pelvis. You can mimic this benefit by spending as much time as possible on all fours! Cat – Cow also helps move your baby into a head down, face down position before birth, minimizing the chances of a breech or sunny-side-up delivery. In my first pregnancy, I flipped my full term, 10 pound, sunny-side-up baby into a face down position by spending about a week on my hands and knees. I wouldn’t have been able to deliver him otherwise!
