Five reasons you should do yoga during pregnancy

1. You can start building your village

We’ve all heard it takes a village to raise a child – but where do you find that village? One of the places you can find your village is pregnancy and postnatal classes. Pregnancy yoga classes provide a great opportunity to connect with other local and like-minded mums and mums-to-be. Sharing an amazing life experience can be a great foundation for friendship and it certainly helps to have mum friends to share the journey with and talk things through with. Many friendships are formed in our pregnancy classes at Love Pilates and we often find many of our mums end up in the same mother’s group, or forming their own.

2. You’ll learn breathing techniques for relaxation

However you birth your baby, relaxation techniques can be useful. Our pregnancy yoga teachers are all mums and we’ve all birthed our babies differently. One thing we all know is that birthing and motherhood can get stressful at times and it’s useful to have a toolkit you can call on to help manage our stress responses. Our pregnancy classes all incorporate breathing practices (pranayama) as well as asana that studies show can be used to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. When we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, certain changes take place such as decreasing heart rate, and relaxation. These techniques will be useful through pregnancy and beyond, as you juggle sleepless nights, teething babies and toddler tantrums!

3. You’ll build strength to help prepare for labour

Pregnancy yoga classes will modify some asanas (poses) to accommodate your changing body. But regardless of any modifications, the asanas will help build strength. All the standing poses (and of course those squats) will help develop leg strength, but classes will also incorporate pelvic floor and postural work.

4. It will help ease pregnancy aches and pains

Most mums will agree that some time during their pregnancy, things start to get uncomfortable. As our body accommodates a growing baby our posture changes and the niggles start. As our pelvis widens to accommodate our growing baby, we might get hip pain (and one of the reasons we always suggest sleeping with hips stacked!), we also tend to breathe less deeply as we run out of room and our ribs can get very tight. Pregnancy yoga classes are designed specifically for our pregnant mums and take in to account all the postural changes that occur. We use a lot of props to help ease your movement and make things comfortable. What you learn on the mat in the studio – you can also take home with you. Pregnancy yoga classes will teach you poses that you can replicate at home to help ease any aches and pains you get – and hopefully help you sleep better!!

5. You’ll connect with your baby

Whether you’re a first time mum, or having a subsequent baby, life can get pretty busy. We often find our mums are busy with work and/or other kids and don’t really get a lot of time to focus on the baby they are going to birth. Pregnancy yoga classes force you to slow down and spend that time focussing on your baby and your body. It’s a chance to focus on your new baby, but also on the journey and how you are feeling about your pregnancy and future arrival.