Reflections on prenatal yoga

Doing headstand while 8 months pregnant

Looking back on my pregnancy and labor experience, I am so glad that yoga was, and is, such a big part of my life. I truly believe it helped me to have a healthy and comfortable pregnancy, and certainly made labor easier than it would have been otherwise. Yoga allowed me to stay relaxed and not endure any pain until beyond the transition period when I was simply too tired to relax, hungry, thirsty, and struggling to push out a nine-pound baby with my smallish five foot tall frame (you can read my birth story here: http://ouvrezvosyeuxjdr.blogspot.com/2011/08/birth-story.html). Yoga also helped me recover from childbirth, rebuilding my strained and exhausted muscles, finding peace with myself, and helping to remember my identity in a new world. Yoga has helped me adjust to a new life. Happily, yoga has become something I can even share with my wonderful baby boy (you can read about baby yoga here: http://ouvrezvosyeuxjdr.blogspot.com/2012/02/itsy-bitsy-yoga.html; I am planning on writing about mommy and me yoga sometime soon).

Sitting in Baddha Konasana while in active labor at home

Shorty after Mattimeo was born, one of my sister's friends asked me if she could interview me for a college paper she was working on about yoga and pregnancy. I gladly agreed; I love sharing what I know and experience with people. That's half the reason why I write this blog (the other half is that I want to have a nice record of Mattimeo's young life for him to look back on when he's older). She kindly sent me her finished paper, which I am pleased to report received an A in her Human Growth and Development class. Thanks again for sharing this with me Hayley, I hope that some pregnant women out there will find this helpful. Enjoy!

Developmental Report:

PRENATAL YOGA

Practicing yoga throughout one's pregnancy can greatly influence the health and well-being of a mother and her unborn child. Yoga teaches us how to meditate and breath correctly, to be patient and grateful, and to find an ultimate balance in our everyday lives. Combining a regular yoga practice with a healthy eating pattern, daily folic acid vitamin intake, regular doctor visits, among other things, and a mother is on the path to a healthy pregnancy. Yoga is not only beneficial during pregnancy, but in all aspects of our growth to help deal with life's everyday stressors. It creates an amazing feeling in the body which has been proven through my own experiences. For the past year and a half I have been practicing at a studio that focuses on heated Vinyasa style yoga. I felt an immediate intimate connection with myself and an intense connection with the energies of others in my first class. I have since felt a growth in my spirit that I knew was missing--a happy spirit that I felt as a child and knew I needed to regain to get through some personal life challenges. It was then when the lightbulb switched on inside me, like an epiphany, and I realized this practice was essential for my mental and physical well-being, as it can become for any expectant mother wishing to take care of her body leading up to, during, and after pregnancy to deal with all the fluctuating changes the body goes through (Corliss, 2001). 

My interest in prenatal yoga was enhanced when my friend told me about her older sister's incredible energy for life during the course of her pregnancy. I was fortunate enough to get to visit her sister, Jasmin, to talk about her yoga experiences throughout her pregnancy, and the joy it has brought she and her new baby Meo, just five weeks old. Jasmin, twenty-five, is the first out of her friends to bear a child. I got the sense that it is an aspect that she thoroughly enjoys, the responsibility of educating not only herself, but also informing others of her experiences through her personal blog (http://ouvrezvosyeuxjdr.blogspot.com), which, like a baby book, is her active recording of her prenatal care, her birth story, images of her yoga stretches, and so much more useful information for any new mother looking for some good advice and guidance during and after pregnancy. I was so intrigued by Jasmin's confidence and calm energy while I was there visiting. Meo, too, did not shed one tear, and napped for most of my visit. It was so apparent how Jasmin had embraced her pregnancy; she embraced the physicality that it would take on her body and appreciated the changes and fluctuations in her body because she knew it was such a unique and empowering experience. In her prenatal yoga classes at Portland Yoga Studio, Jasmin was participating in many of the same poses that she had practiced in her regular classes prior to her pregnancy. She was excited to learn she could continue to do headstands and inversions during the pregnancy, which really helped her to become flexible and confident going into labor. An article in Time Magazine interviewed a devoted yoga student who says, "…it impels you to do things you never thought you were capable of doing," as Jasmin proved to me in our interview (Corliss 2001). 

Yoga helps women get used to the feeling of opening up, literally. In Lynn Felder's article inYoga Journal, she interviews prenatal yoga instructor, Angela Gallagher, who says that labor is the most open a woman will ever be, and that it is no time to be shy (Felder n.d.). Yoga helps expectant mothers get into stretches and positions that will aid them during feelings of discomfort in pregnancy and in labor. Gallagher thinks it is so important that women train for labor because childbirth is one of the most physical things they will ever experience, remarking that one would not run a marathon without preparing for it, so why treat labor that way? To get them on the right track, Gallagher teaches her students Asanas, the physical poses to help build strength and improve circulation, meditation to help relax and concentrate, and Pranayama, breathing exercises to help control the pain of contractions. Poses like modified 'Cat-Cow' with hands and knees down and a rounded back can help move the baby into the right position for delivery, and a pose like Baddha Konasana with soles of feet together and knees out can help a woman get used to the feeling of opening up for delivery (fig. 1). As Jasmin discussed in her interview as well as in this article, it is in a woman's nature to be able to possess the skills for giving birth, and it should be a process to be cherished and not feared. Jasmin noted that it seems as though doctors often treat pregnancy as an illness, and can offer the epidural or c-section alternative if the pain seems unbearable. She chose to have a natural birth assisted by a midwife; it all depends on the woman's level of comfort and certainty leading up to labor. 

Pregnancy can also be a very stressful nine months for many women. As Jasmin reflected, it is all about attitude. Go into your pregnancy with excitement for the unknown rather than fear. Be open to change because without much support from a partner, family, friends, and other pregnant mothers, it can be a very lonely and overwhelming nine months. Being pregnant comes with many mysteries and also with things that women should be prepared for like morning sickness and weight gain.The body will react to how you handle day-to-day challenges; the most common occurrence of prenatal stress are premature births and low birth weights which can often lead to developmental problems (Jones 2000). The growing fetus will mirror your actions and respond to what it feels and hears in and out of the womb. The mother must give herself alone time to interact with her baby--sing, carry, soothe, and hold them. It is the opportunity for you and your baby to connect and learn from each other. Embracing these ideas is what can make it such a wonderful experience. Jasmin's approach of staying busy with her job of walking dogs, attending yoga and water aerobics classes, talking with other expectant mothers, and interacting with Meo, helped her to enjoy the pregnancy. 

Joining a yoga class surrounded by other expectant mothers can help combat the stress. The sense of community is so comforting and such an essential part of the pregnancy, and a yoga class can be a great outlet for women to share their experiences (Felder n.d.). I feel a sense of community every time I walk in the door at my local yoga studio. Everyone is so embracing and we are all there for the same basic reasons to relieve stress and work out the body. It is that sense of community combined with my yoga mat on the bamboo floors, dimmed lights, smells of burning incense, the quiet sound of ambient music, and the one-hundred degree heat, that sinks my mind and body into a state of full presence and awareness. As Jasmin assured me, it is a natural, beautiful, and life-changing experience to be pregnant and to birth a child; she loved being pregnant and is loving the adventures Meo is bringing to her life. She took care of herself so that she had the energy and power to make her pregnancy worthwhile. Regular yoga practice can give a woman presence of mind, a deeper connection with herself and her baby, and an ultimate energy for life before, during, and after pregnancy (Felder n.d.).

References

Corliss, Richard. (2001, April 23). The Power of Yoga. Time Magazine, 1-9. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999731,00.html

Felder, Lynn. (n.d.). Yoga for Moms-To-Be: Bond with your unborn baby and prepare for labor. Yoga Journal, 1-5. Retrieved from http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/879

Jones, Rochelle. (2000, February 16). Stress and Pregnancy Don't Mix.WebMD, 1-3. Retrieved from http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/women/02/15/pregnancy.stress.wmd/index.html 

Robinson, J. (2011, August 14). Birth Story [Web log image]. Retrieved from http://ouvrezvosyeuxjdr.blogspot.com/2011/08/birth-story.html