My yoga during pregnancy

Well, I am 32,5 weeks pregnant now. 🙂 I am going to share with you what yoga poses I’ve been able to do during my pregnancy.

Last year while I was teaching quite a few prenatal classes, I was always wondering and also inquiring from my students how they felt during the yoga sessions or even in particular poses. As I’ve never been pregnant that time, it was good to get feedback, which poses were good.

And when at the beginning of the year it turned out that I am pregnant, my own experiment has started. I must say I didn’t feel too well in the first three months. Felt nausious all day long and very-very tired. I didn’t know what to eat or drink as nothing seemed to be right. Even the taste of the water was different. Amazing what hormones can do. Around week 14-15 all this slowly stopped and I was back to normal again. What a relief it was 🙂

I still kept teaching yoga all through my pregnancy (actually tomorrow is my last session, then I am leaving back to Hungary to have our baby there).

In the first 3 months I was able to do everything, although was very careful not to overdo anything (especially that officially you are not supposed to do yoga in that delicate period, until the baby settles), and I also omitted abdominal strenghtening exercises, like the leg lifts. I gave up headstand by month 3, as I felt my head was exploding, due to the increased blood in the body. At around week 14, I’ve stopped doing cobra and other poses on the belly. In the 6^th month the shoulderstand started to be a struggle, so stopped. I was able to do the Sivananda sun salutation up until week 29, with lifted cobra and even the plank was ok, not holding it of course.

In the last 3 months I was teaching quite a few prenatal yoga again, which was great, because at least I had my full sessions as well.

As the belly grows avoid twisting from the belly, only twist from the chest.

So practice yoga with care during your pregnancy and listen to your body, only do what feels right. Also consult your doctor if you are new to yoga.

Books – I didn’t go crazy on buying all kinds of pregnancy and childcare books as I think it is really unnecessary. I got only 2 which I think great. One is the Hypnobirthing by Marie F. Mongan, which prepares you for a relaxed, pain and drug free, natural birth. Being a natural person, I am not a friend of drugs and tablets and any intervention, so I am planning a natural birth. The philosophy behind this method and the book makes good sense: women have been having babies for thousands of years, our bodies are designed to do it, and a lot of the pain in labor comes from being conditioned to be afraid of it. You get scared, you tense up, and it hurts. However if you let go of fear, everything opens up and can have a pain free, relaxed delivery. Highly recommend reading and practicing it! The breathing exercises are very similar to yogic breathing, so shouldn’t be difficult to learn it 🙂

The other book was recommended to me by a friend and it’s for those who want to have scheduled parenting. And I am one of those! I would like to have my baby as contented as possible with the right daily schedule for her. The book is the The New Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford, I think her advices are logical and brilliant, and will use it from day one, and share my experience.

Enjoy your pregnancies!