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The Benefits of Prenatal Yoga

Family | Lifestyle

Exercise is always good for you but when you’re pregnant it helps to take it slow. Prenatal yoga is a great way to still keep in shape. The choice to get into a prenatal yoga class won’t just benefit you, it would also greatly benefit the baby. Since being pregnant means going through so many physical changes in the body, yoga helps you gracefully adapt to these new changes.

Prenatal Yoga On The First Trimester

With pregnancy comes a lot of stress. A long hour class of prenatal yoga can help you take a time off to just focus on you, your needs, your body, and the baby in your womb. The gentle stretching you get do during prenatal yoga also helps relieve those kinks. It even manages to ease those pains and aches that seem to just pile up. Walking will also feel easier. Prenatal yoga leaves your muscles feeling stronger and therefore feeling less strain and pressure in the back and hips. It helps to mention particular areas where you are feeling some discomfort so that your yoga instructor can concentrate on specific movements and stretching to help you.

Prenatal Yoga On The Second Trimester

A common thing that many pregnant women experience is lack of sleep. With the help of prenatal yoga, after a good session of stretching and exercising you will be able to get a good night’s sleep. Joining a prenatal yoga class also gives you a great support group of other pregnant and expecting women. This can be very helpful especially for first time moms who are a lot more excited and stressed about this overwhelming new experience. The yoga poses helps increase circulation and decrease swelling. This will provide more oxygen and blood flow to the baby. Since your body is catering to a growing baby, sometimes breathing can become restricted. Prenatal yoga helps you learn to keep up deep and even breathing.

Prenatal Yoga On the Third Trimester

During this time, your belly and breasts start to grow. This explains the constant lower back pains. Practicing yoga will help elongate the spine as well as stretch and strengthen the back. This doesn’t just help you get through pregnancy, it also helps you prepare for the physically demanding years of motherhood after the child is born. And probably the best thing that prenatal yoga has to offer is the benefit it has on going through actual labor. The most basic exercise in yoga is strong breathing, a technique that will come in very handy during the difficult part of labor. Prenatal yoga helps pregnant women cope with the struggles and discomforts of being pregnant. In fact, it makes the experience more tolerable, enjoyable even. All in all, you learn to calm your mind and body. With this, you will develop a great sense of inner peace, something that will go a long way even after child birth.

On the whole, prenatal yoga provides multitude physical and mental benefits. And for most of the common discomforts that come with pregnancy, prenatal yoga also provides a more natural relief along with improving flexibility and muscle tones. Safely and properly practicing yoga in these stages before birth will help you cope with the many pitfalls during the pregnancy. Furthermore, it prepares you're mind, body, and spirit for the delivery itself as you have become stronger and more flexible in the areas that matter the most during this time.

Featured in New York Magazine, The Guardian, and The Washington Post
Featured in the Huffington Post, USA Today, and VOGUE

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