Pregnant Yoga Tips

Pregnant yoga is an excellent way to mitigate back pain, learn relaxation, open up your pelvis for easier childbirth and simply feel better.

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Today many women who are pregnant choose to do yoga during their pregnancy. After all, yoga has a lot of different benefits for women who are pregnant.

While yoga can be beneficial to anyone, moms-to-be can really enjoy some excellent benefits during their pregnancy, making pregnancy and even delivery easier for them.

For me personally, using prenatal yoga to learn breathing and relaxation was a great preparation for giving birth.

The Benefits of Pregnancy Yoga

There are quite a few great benefits for using yoga while you are pregnant. One benefit of doing pregnant yoga is that it can help you to increase flexibility, which can help to create more space for the baby. It can help to get rid of some of the pain that comes with fetal growth that many women experience.

Another benefit is that yoga helps women who are pregnant to reduce stress. For many women, pregnancy can be a stressful time, and yoga can help to at least provide a temporary relief for some of the stress they are going through, which is beneficial for women and for their baby.

Pregnant yoga also teaches a lot about breathing and meditation. These two things can be invaluable when women go through labor and delivery. With the right breathing and movements from yoga, many women are able to get through delivery with less pain without having to take drugs.

Of course, there are several other benefits as well that pregnant women can enjoy. Yoga can help them more easily get into shape after pregnancy, it can help them to keep good posture, and can also improve their sleep.

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First Trimester

During the first trimester, a woman's body is going through many changes, but pregnant yoga can be helpful. Although you may be a bit self conscious, you may want to enroll in a pregnancy yoga class where you are with other women who are pregnant as well.

Yoga poses like the Triangle, Pigeon, and Warrior II are poses that can open up your hips, making the birth easier for you. You'll find video clips showing many prenatal yoga poses here.

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Second Trimester

The second trimester is one of the best times to practice yoga, since you are past some of the morning sickness, yet you are not in the huge-feeling last months of pregnancy.

It's a good idea to continue using poses that open the hips, like the Knee to Ankle, and previously mentioned poses. Using positions that are on all fours, such as Cat-Cow, is also great for keeping your baby in the right birth position.

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Third Trimester

Although you'll be bigger and feeling less than graceful during the third trimester, there are still some great pregnant yoga positions that you can do. Just avoid holding poses too long and sure something to provide you some balance when doing standing poses.

You can use the Cobbler's post to further open you pelvis, the pelvic tilt, which can lessen your back pain, and squatting poses can help to build up your leg strength.

Check out the Cobbler's pose here.

Pregnancy Yoga Video

Here is a good sample video to show you some of the most common poses in pregnancy yoga. Try these out. And if you like them, then enroll in a prenatal yoga class or at least get your self a really good pregnant yoga dvd to practise at home.

Instructions: When watching the video clips, start the videos by clicking the small arrow down to the left, not the large one in the middle of the screen. If you're using Internet Explorer as your browser and the video doesn't start, try clicking twice on the small arrow.

To learn more pregnancy yoga poses, click here.

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Precautions

Of course, while yoga does have many benefits while you are pregnant, there are some precautions to keep in mind.

First of all, you should make sure that you avoid postures that make you uncomfortable. For example some pregnant women simply can't lie flat on their back even with their knees bent. If anything hurst or you get dizzy, then stop!

You don't want to use movements that really use the abdominal muscles either. If you ever feel pain, nausea, or you get dizzy, then stop the exercises. Never force a position either when practicing yoga.

If you keep these tips in mind, you can use yoga with great benefits during your pregnancy.

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