When I started teaching prenatal yoga in 2001, it was all “don’t do abdominal exercises, don’t do twists, and don’t sweat.” Even studying pregnancy exercise as part of my Masters didn’t validate the safety and the importance of pregnancy exercise.
As a prenatal yoga teacher, I learned first hand how much we need our strength when we’re pregnant, maybe more than any other time. When else are we carrying a baby inside that weighs as much as a bowling ball, 24/7? When else do we need to find the power within us to move that bowling ball outside of us?
Fear around pregnancy has remained embedded in our culture long after we developed modern medical care. Even the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) didn’t recommend regular, daily pregnancy exercise until 2002.
Before that, it was just “just rest, dear.”
But we know what happens when we don’t use our muscles – we lose them.
And pregnancy exercise can help move extra fluid through, reducing swelling and discomfort. Physical activity improves mood, strength and endurance, and can help you sleep better. Additionally, pregnancy exercise can benefit the baby and helps prevent and treat gestational diabetes.
So how do we know we’re being safe?
Optimal Alignment for Pregnancy Exercise
Optimal alignment means moving muscles and bones, breath and awareness in their most natural, life-enhancing direction.
In the case of pregnancy exercise, we’re not just thinking about creating stability for the natural curves of the spine and space for breath – we also want to enable baby to move into optimal positing for birth.
How did I learn about optimal alignment for pregnancy exercise? In addition to my Kinesiology training, I studied alignment-based yoga and spent years learning from my pregnant mamas. If a student had a discomfort or pain, I would suggest a simple shift in the direction her shoulder blades or hips were moving. Often it made her feel better right away. Sometimes, it didn’t quite work for her unstable, pregnant body, and we had to adjust.
What I and many others learned over the decades is that we need to use our bodies in a plethora of ways: walk, swim, dance, do resistance training.
And yet, our subtle habits like hunching our shoulders or letting the weight of our belly pull our hips forward can grow as baby grows. They can go from a barely noticable discomfort to agonizing pain.
With alignment-based pregnancy exercise, not only can we get even stronger as baby grows – we can move our muscles and bones more and more in the direction of their natural stability and freedom, and actually feel better and better as labor approaches.
And it’s not only muscular strength that we develop with alignment-based yoga – it’s also “inner strength”. Using the breath, intention, and support to get through intense sensations on the mat is wonderful practice for labor – and motherhood.
Pregnancy can be a time when we live in fear of moving our body – or a chance to explore the ways in which we can use breath to make space and a strong container for baby to grow.
It can be a doorway to our Divine Feminine Self; a discovery of a power within us that’s deeper than effort, and an intelligence that’s wiser than knowledge. The ability to access both inner and outer strength, both outer knowledge and inner wisdom is what we develop in alignment-based yoga – so we can become the “Ma” we want to be.
Listen to your body. If walking feels good, do it more. If swimming seems like it would be delightful, take time out to give that weightlessness to your body. Do a dance every day with baby – labor is a kind of dance where you go with what the body wants, so it’s great preparation.
And of course, get thee to the mat with experts in alignment, so you can empty out, find your steady center, play and root in to your power, and experience what’s moving through you right now.
If you’d like to try alignment-based yoga, you can book a free personalized live online yoga session with a caring, expert teacher today here.
