Yoga in pregnancy: what actually helps

Pregnancy isn’t only a physical change. It’s a change for the whole nervous system — and that is exactly why prenatal yoga is something other than an ordinary class that happens to have pregnant women in it.

From which week

I recommend coming to a group class from week 12, once the first trimester is behind you. If you were practising before and the pregnancy is without complications, there is usually no reason to stop — but one rule still comes before all the others: what your doctor or midwife says takes precedence over anything you read here or anywhere else.

What genuinely helps in pregnancy

Safe positions for each trimester. The body changes differently every three months. What felt good in week fourteen can be uncomfortable in week thirty. That is why positions aren’t adapted “for pregnancy” in general, but for where you are right now.

Working with the pelvic floor — in both directions. This is probably the most common misunderstanding. The pelvic floor doesn’t only need to “squeeze as hard as possible”. Just as important — and during birth even more so — is being able to let it go. That can be learned, and it is a skill that serves you for months after birth too.

Breath. Not as a technique to memorise, but as something you carry with you all the time. During birth, during sleepless nights in the third trimester, and on the days when the sheer number of things left to do starts to weigh on you.

Relief from whatever hurts right now. Lower back, shoulders, legs. It isn’t the main goal, but it is what usually brings women to a first class.

An hour when you don’t have to hurry anywhere. An underrated part. Most pregnant women keep going at full tilt, and the single hour a week in which nothing has to happen has a value of its own.

What to avoid

• Lying on your back later in pregnancy — especially for longer stretches in the third trimester. Lying on your side or propped up works instead.
• Deep backbends and strong compression of the belly.
• Stretching “to the maximum”. In pregnancy there is more relaxin in the body, the joints are looser, and the range you can reach isn’t necessarily the range your body can carry.
• Holding your breath during effort.
• Comparing yourself with what you could do before you were pregnant — or with another woman in the room.

What prenatal yoga is not

It isn’t preparation for “staying in shape”. And it isn’t a promise of an easy birth either — no one can honestly promise you that.

It is time in which you learn to understand a body that is changing faster than ever before. A body that doesn’t need performance from you, but safety.

If your pregnancy is high-risk

Write to me beforehand. Either we find a way for you to practise safely, or I’ll tell you that now isn’t the right time — and that is an answer too. I don’t replace a doctor, a midwife or a physiotherapist.

I teach prenatal yoga as a certified instructor of women’s and pregnancy yoga. Classes take place at Inner Temple in Pezinok, in a small group of up to ten.