Prenatal yoga is widely recognized for its benefits during pregnancy. And for good reason ! It is a practice with many benefits for pregnant women and yoga is an effective way to prepare for childbirth. By combining postures adapted to the constraints of pregnancy with breathing and relaxation techniques, prenatal yoga offers future mothers a space to connect with their body, their baby and their breath. The practice of yoga is the ideal ally for future mothers in addition to childbirth preparation sessions with the midwife. Discover 5 prenatal yoga postures to best prepare for your birth and support your body and mind throughout your pregnancy.
Prenatal yoga, yoga suitable for pregnant women
The benefits of prenatal yoga
Maintaining appropriate physical activity is recommended for a healthy pregnancy as well as easier childbirth and postpartum recovery. But the benefits of prenatal yoga go beyond these benefits.
Practicing yoga strengthens the muscles essential for childbirth, while also relieving the most common pregnancy aches and pains. Prenatal yoga also offers a space for deep connection with your unborn baby, promoting a strong emotional bond between mother and child.
By incorporating breathing and relaxation exercises, it helps reduce stress and anxiety, mentally and emotionally preparing pregnant women to approach labor with confidence and serenity.
Take prenatal yoga classes for your pregnancy
It is advisable to follow prenatal yoga sessions from the 3rd month of pregnancy (like those of Bernadette De Gasquet's method), even if you practiced another type of yoga before becoming pregnant.
Pregnancy brings significant changes to a woman's body, and so it is important to have classes specifically designed to meet these unique needs. The postures and breathing exercises offered in prenatal yoga classes are carefully selected to take into account the physical constraints of pregnant women, thus ensuring a safe practice adapted to their needs.
5 prenatal yoga postures to support preparation for childbirth
Cat and cow postures
Cat pose involves rounding your back toward the sky while exhaling, which stretches and strengthens your back muscles. This posture helps relieve back pain, which is common during pregnancy.
Cow pose involves arching the back while inhaling, which gently stretches the abdominal muscles and opens the heart. This posture helps strengthen the abdominal muscles, which can be beneficial in supporting the growing uterus.
The alternation and regular practice of these two postures in coordination with breathing allows you to create strength and mobility in the back and the center of the body, relieve pregnancy pain and prepare for childbirth.
Butterfly pose
This posture helps open the hips and groins. It relieves tension and discomfort associated with pregnancy. Thanks to the gentle and progressive stretching of all the muscles of the pelvis, the butterfly also prepares the body for labor and childbirth by facilitating the baby's passage. In addition, this pose offers pregnant women a special moment to focus on their breathing and their interiority, thus strengthening the emotional bond with their unborn child. This is even more true with the elongated version of the butterfly.
Sit on the floor of your yoga mat with the soles of your feet together and your knees apart to the sides. Hold your feet with your hands and lean forward slightly while keeping your back straight. Breathe deeply and hold the posture for as long as is comfortable.
In its elongated version, you can support your back with a large inclined cushion and your legs with supports at the back of each thigh. Then place your hands on your stomach and let your breath carry you while connecting with baby.
Half-bridge posture
This posture actively strengthens the pelvic floor muscles, providing crucial support to the growing uterus. It also promotes the opening of the pelvic region and can therefore facilitate the passage of the baby.
Additionally, by gently stretching the back and shoulder muscles, this pose helps relieve tension often felt during pregnancy. It also stimulates blood circulation in the lower body and can thus help prevent circulatory problems, another of the many ailments during pregnancy.
To perform it, from a lying position, knees bent, place the soles of your feet close to your pelvis at the width of your hips. The arms are extended into the ground. Roll the buttocks towards your feet and feel your lower back flattening to the ground. Then lift the buttocks by pressing, slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae in your hands. Don't try to go too high. After a few breaths, roll your back into the ground, again one vertebra after the other up to the pelvis.
The malasana posture
The Malasana pose, also known as the yogic squat, involves squatting with your feet apart and your knees bent, your pelvis closest to the floor, and your heels resting on the floor or on a support. The arms can come in prayer so that the elbows press gently against the inside of the knees.
It opens the hips, stretches the groin muscles and helps open the pelvic region. It therefore prepares the body for labor and childbirth by facilitating the passage of the baby through the pelvic canal. Additionally, Malasana pose strengthens the muscles of the legs, thighs, and pelvis, which can help support the weight of the uterus and ease labor during childbirth . By toning these muscles, this pose can also help you improve your strength, stability and balance, which can be useful during labor, especially to stay upright as long as possible (in agreement with the midwife).
Happy baby pose
This posture helps stretch the muscles of the groin, thighs and lower back, while calming the nervous system. It makes it easier to open the hips without the constraint of gravity, which can bring a lot of relaxation to the pelvis and lower back.
Lie on your back and bend your knees toward your chest. Grab your feet with your hands and spread your knees slightly out to the sides, as if you were a happy baby playing with their feet. Keep your shoulders relaxed and your lower back on the floor. Breathe deeply and hold the posture for as long as it remains comfortable.
To practice complete prenatal yoga sessions at home and best prepare for your birth , discover the Studio Cam's Yoga program. You will benefit from the best online videos , adapted to each trimester of pregnancy, to take care of your well-being and that of your future baby in this unique stage of your life.
