The Effects of Yoga on You and Your Baby

When you’re expecting, you will want to keep your mind, body, and spirit in a good state. A fetus is sensitive to what is occurring in your body. So to have a gentle practice that keeps you fit while not jeopardizing the health of your unborn child is essential. There are certain gentle poses in yoga that can be of great help. They keep you flexible, balanced, and strong while helping the mind. The practice keeps you relaxed which is important when you’re expecting. Here are the effects that yoga has on you and your baby.

You Stay in Touch With Your Body

Yoga gives you the space to get in touch with your body. When you practice regularly, you’ll be able to focus on parts of your body. You can feel where the tension is and breathe into that area. When you’re going through childbirth, you may find this particularly useful. Also, when you can relax all your muscles, you relax everything. This reduces inflammation, which has been linked to poor pregnancy health. If you’re overly stressed, your baby may experience developmental problems later due to how their brain develops when you’re the body is in constant fight/flight response mode.

Moderates Your Mood

Yoga helps you to breathe deeply while moving in ways that promotes deeper breathing. This is one of the many ways that yoga can relax the central nervous system. When you feel sad, angry, or stressed out, the baby does feel it. If you can maintain a positive as often as possible, your baby is calmer too. Some yoga poses also help to Heart Palpitations.

You Counteract the Slouching Pregnancy Causes

Yoga really helps you with your posture, which is necessary when you’re pregnant. Especially when you start nursing, your posture becomes badly misaligned. It may be painful to lift your baby out of the crib if you allow bad posture to persist. Yoga improves posture by strengthening the back and shoulders. It also helps because you become more conscious of what good posture feels like. Mountain Pose is a position where you stand. Your shoulders are back with your palms facing forward. You tuck in your pelvis slightly and engage your core. This pose will remind you that this is what good posture feels like.

The community of Other Moms

When you go into a prenatal yoga class, it’s a great way to bond with other soon-to-be-mothers. You may find yourself getting helpful health advice. They are facing similar challenges to you. They have the same concerns and you may find that sharing feelings with each other is deeply helpful for you. Many mothers can feel alone in their journey, especially if their moms don’t live nearby for support. Having a community is important to feel like you’re not doing it all on your own. This will reduce stress and the potential of depression or anxiety.

Breathe Through Yoga

Half of the practice of yoga is breathing. There are many heavy and meaningful breaths that occur in yoga and it’s the most effective part of the practice for relaxation. As you breathe and move, you can set the pact of your practice. You bring in all that extra oxygen in the body when you consciously breathe.

Here is a breath to focus on:

• Inhale slowly through your nose.
• Focus on filling air into the belly, ribs and chest.
• Hold the breath for a few seconds.
• Exhale through your nose until all the air in your belly is gone.
• Do this a few times daily.
• Some Yoga Poses You Can Do While You’re Pregnant

Shoulder Roll

• This pose will help with your posture and relieve stress from your shoulders.
• Start with your hands down at your sides.
• Bring shoulders forward, up to your ears, and back.
• As you bring your shoulders blades back, imagine you are trying to get them to touch.

Cat/Cow Pose

• Good for spinal health and strengthens abdominal muscles.
• How to do Cat/Cow
• Start on your hands on knees.
• Hands should be under your shoulders and knees under your hips.

During your exhale, arch your back as you bring your head and tailbone up to the ceiling. Look up to the ceiling but be careful with your neck. Keep it extended as opposed to crunching it to get a full arch in your back.

When you exhale, bring your head between your shoulders and round your back to do Cat pose. Bring your chin down to your chest and pull your pelvis forward, tailbone pointing to the mat.

Do this gently a few times.

It’s important to speak with your doctor about what you should and shouldn’t do. Listen to your body and be very mindful while you do yoga poses during pregnancy. Take note that there are poses you should not do when you’re pregnant.