Are you letting doctors be completely in charge of your path to pregnancy? Do you feel like a helpless victim at the mercy of the fertility gods? What are you doing to make your body as clean, sparkling and welcoming a home for the life you want to grow inside of you? What kind of spring-cleaning are you doing?
How are you eliminating toxins…. in your diet, beauty products, cleaning products? What kind of movement are you doing to oxgenate and strengthen?
What kind of practices are you doing to ease the stress of conceiving – meditation? Better and more sleep? Yoga? Massage? The more you choose to become your own master of health the more empowered you will feel in your own ability to conceive. You will feel more in control which will help to ease anxiety and reduce cortisol (the stress hormone) The more cortisol in your system, the more it throws your delicate hormonal balance into pandemonium.
Often women that are pregnant discover yoga since it is a way to heal, gain body awareness and nurture oneself. Yoga when you are pregnant helps to strengthen the body for child bearing and aids in relieving the common discomforts the body experiences. Yoga helps you find the time and space to look within yourself, allowing you to openly explore your own intrinsic knowledge about the cycles of life. It is an opportunity to come together with a circle of women to share and connect with some of the dreams and scares that pregnancy brings as well.
A prenatal and postnatal yoga practice can help you
Support your health before and after pregnancy
Connect you with other parents who are at all stages of pregnancy
Improve your postpartum recovery
Helps to strengthen the body for child bearing and aids in relieving the common discomforts the body experiences.
Best and Worst Yoga Poses to do When You are Pregnant
Alleviate many of the discomforts of pregnancy such as nausea, constipation, varicose veins, swelling, back pain and sciatica.
Cautions about practicing yoga while pregnant:
Since nausea is common during the first part of pregnancy it may be helpful to practice in a well-ventilated room. During the second trimester your growing belly will require modifying some poses. Use common sense and avoid putting too much pressure on the abdomen in poses like Head To Knee Postures, Seated Forward Fold, as well as Seated Spinal Twists. You may choose to reduce the amount of vinyasa if generating heat in the body makes you uncomfortable.
Best and Worst Yoga Poses to do When You are Pregnant
The third trimester will require you to continue to adapt and even omit certain postures. Standing poses like Extended Triangle Pose, and Extended Side Angle Pose can help relieve back pain. And a simple inversion such as Legs-Up-the-Wall-Pose can help to relieve puffy ankles. Some poses might require additional props or support. Through each trimester the most important thing is to tune in to what your body is telling you and alter your practice accordingly. During and after pregnancy, try not to be attached to your level of flexibility. Pregnancy is a great time to learn how to emotionally, spiritually and physically release.
Other words of wisdom for pregnant women interested in yoga: Linking yoga postures with breath will lead you to new discoveries, bringing awareness to the mind, body and soul, and also the spirit of your growing baby. Your practice will help to foster a sense of calm and acceptance as well as strengthen the uterus and pelvic muscles, aid in digestion, exercise the spine and increase overall comfort. Yoga can also alleviate many of the discomforts of pregnancy such as nausea, varicose veins, swelling, back pain and sciatica. Being in a community gives you access to a safe circle so you can freely discuss any issues, from discomforts and concerns, to the wonderful new changes your body and baby are experiencing. It is very important to inform the teacher of any complications (current or past) or any treatment that you are receiving.
During pregnancy ligaments around the joints become loose and soft. Care should therefore be taken not to overstretch the body. The abdomen should remain relaxed and soft at all times to allow room for the baby.
Pregnancy can make you feel more tired than usual. It is essential to be aware of this and try not to do things to the point of fatigue. If you feel tired after yoga or any other physical exercise, it means that the practice has been faulty or that you have done too much. Signals such as pains, stitches, cramps, nausea, dizziness, headaches and contractions should never be felt during or after yoga practice. Yoga generates energy, rather than dissipating it.
So now I am days away from my “due date”….. really hate that term….. feel like I am a carton of milk that is about to go bad by having a date. Now when people ask when I am “due” I just say soon. Never felt such discomfort in so many body parts in my whole life and I’m very used to dealing with chronic pain most of my adult life. Sometimes I feel like I can barely walk. When I walk is with great effort, a huge lack of grace, balance and coordination…. qualities that yoga has helped me cultivate and now that are GONE. I basically walk like that Edgar character in Men In Black – the guy whose body is taken over by cockroaches.
I’ve been doing everything I can to induce labor naturally – acupuncture, using the breast pump, chiropractic adjustments, evening primrose oil, special “assistance” from hubby, walking, yoga, pelvic tilts, going up and down stairs sideways, spicy food….. in a few days I might resort to castor oil.
We’ve been getting ready for 9 months…. we basically added a new addition to our house, but instead of hiring contractors to do this for us we did 95% of it which includes sledgehammering, adding new electrical wires, moving a ton of furniture around, adding new lighting downstairs painting little tables a huge bookcase, a dresser….. for the nursery that was easier but still more work than I realized. We put an Eco-bond paint covering on the floor in case there was lead paint on there before it would provide protection.
Then painted the molding, the walls, the ceiling, took down the ceiling fan, changing the curtains, fixing the drawers so they are not so noisy, getting a new radiator, insulating our new home office downstairs. Then we started to get all the baby stuff together which entails putting a crib together, moving even more furniture downstairs, reconfiguring our back sun room which is a storage area for baby stuff, toiletries.
Many trips to Babies R Us to exchange some of the dozens of newborn baby clothes ( we have about 45 newborn onesies – such a waste since they outgrow them in a month, that doesn’t even count the 15 I exchanged for other things such as diapers, wipes, blackout curtains, a baby carrier, nursing pads. I never realized the urge people have to buy newborn clothes. I didn’t even register for any and that is about 90% of what I got plus about 6 tubes of butt paste ( I only registered for 1.) I washed all of the baby clothes, baby sheets, swaddle blankets.
We’ve attended our Childbirth Education Classes and plan to use hypnosis for pain management. I also plan to have a natural birth without medications or interventions. Because of my age, thyroid and gestational diabetes I require enhanced monitoring and my Perinatologist recommends I get induced on by 41 weeks if I don’t go into labor naturally at that point.
I’ve been pretty adamantly opposed to that. I want to avoid the hospital and hospital staff as much as I can. I have a deep distrust of institutionalized medicine since I have been to countless Western-trained doctor for various health issues and 90% of them have been a HUGE waste of time and money. I hate how I am literally a “number” when I call MainLine Health they identify you by your social security number which is so impersonal. At so many doctor offices I visit it feels like a factory and it’s such a dehumanizing experience. The doctor’s main goal is to make sure they don’t spend more than 15 minutes with me since insurance doesn’t reimburse them if they spend too much time with me. Since I have a complicated health history I always feel shortchanged.
So I did a lot of research on the typical ways that women give birth in this country and decided I wanted to have a personal, intimate experience where I felt like I could get the attention I was craving. When you have a Midwife attending to you, you get a lot more attention, education than a typical OB office. So as I get closer to my little guy making his worldwide debut, I am anxious about my natural birth wishes.
So now all there is to do is to surrender…. to realize I don’t have any control over….. that someone else is in control. Hopefully the next post from me will be about how hours after I wrote this our little guy decided to make his debut……. stay tuned……..
Yoga has been my salvation with all the discomforts, pains or pregnancy.
I hate it when some women tell me they “LOVE being pregnant”… I love having life inside of me but really hate feeling like I will throw up, having excruciating sacroiliac pain so bad I can’t even walk, having terrible insomnia, leg cramps so bad they wake me up at night and now feeling like I can barely get out of a chair. Climbing stairs in my house is like scaling Mount Everest.
I have been teaching less yoga these days… in the first half of my pregnancy I felt pukey and just couldn’t focus on everyone else’s needs in a group class. During the second half I feel so awkward and clumsy and I can’t demo many of my favorite poses. Going to other prenatal yoga classes has been my favorite part of the week. I love being in a sea of swollen bellies, sharing what is going on with us physically … it’s quite a bonding experience that I wish I could just do more. I often have to teach at the time of my favorite prenatal class so it feels like I only make it there 1 – 2 times a month instead of 1 – 2 times a week like I would prefer.
Some of the poses that relax the most involve laying on my stomach or on my back which I can’t do these days. After about my 4th month Icouldn’t lay on my back anymore. So now I am limited to side lying poses, some standing poses and lunges. Probably what I do more than anything these days are pelvic tilts – cat-cow poses and a lot of child’s pose. I’ve had a lot of low back pain, SI joint paint (sacroiliac pain) so lunges and pelvic tilts have been my salvation. Also some hip opening poses and some non-weight bearing squats.
I have a few regular private yoga students these days and I think I look more forward to our yoga sessions than they do even though I have to get up early on Saturdays and drive quite a bit to get to their house and then schlep a bunch of stuff inside. I still look so forward to our sessions.
Also in this pic in the post, I got the idea to have my swollen belly painted with liquid gold latex with blue butterflies. I was not sufficiently warned about the impact of covering your body with liquid latex and when I peeled it off it was like waxing…. except instead of it being a small area like my eyebrows it was about 20 square feet of skin. It felt like ass to peel it off.
That was just the beginning of that pain though.
The liquid latex made my belly skin erupt into a horrid looking fiery red rash that was SCORCHING. I put everything I could to soothe myangry belly. Aloe vera, creme benedryl, ice… we got some Aveena Oatmeal bath packets and instead of soaking in the bath we made this into a paste and let it marinate on my belly. That helped. I rinsed it off and my belly erupted again into a ball of pain. I started pacing the house like a lunatic screaming from the pain….. we were moments away from going to the hospital. We put the paste back on my belly and I just slept in it.
I don’t generally sleep in dried oatmeal on a large part of my body but it was either this or the ER. I woke up the next morning, rinsed off the oatmeal but my fiery belly demanded more oatmeal. So I put more oatmeal paste on there. Thank god I mostly work from home since I put a slightly wet towel over my oatmeal belly to keep it moist. It was weird but this was working.
So it’s almost two weeks since the oatmeal belly incident and my belly is just about healed. I talked to other folks who did liquid latex and they also got rashes. Apparently you are supposed to put a layer of vaseline on your body before you put on the liquid latex.
couldn’t lay on my back anymore. So now I am limited to side lying poses, some standing poses and lunges. Probably what I do more than anything these days are pelvic tilts – cat-cow poses and a lot of child’s pose. I’ve had a lot of low back pain, SI joint paint (sacroiliac pain) so lunges and pelvic tilts have been my salvation. Also some hip opening poses and some non-weight bearing squats.
angry belly. Aloe vera, creme benedryl, ice… we got some Aveena Oatmeal bath packets and instead of soaking in the bath we made this into a paste and let it marinate on my belly. That helped. I rinsed it off and my belly erupted again into a ball of pain. I started pacing the house like a lunatic screaming from the pain….. we were moments away from going to the hospital. We put the paste back on my belly and I just slept in it.