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As a pre-natal yoga teacher I often get asked by expectant mothers what is safe to do during pregnancy. It can be completely overwhelming with all the changes going on in your body and constantly conflicting information from doctors, google and even well-intentioned friends and family members. The truth is what works for one woman doesn’t necessarily work for the other and even in some castes what works for one pregnancy might not work for the next! So it can be really hard and incredibly confusing. If you are confused, its normal, in a way even good – it means you are questioning things which will eventually lead to some answers. 

The first point I’d like to address is the role of exercise during pregnancy. I see a lot of people telling pregnant women that if they were doing something prior to their pregnancy then it’s safe to continue during the pregnancy. Now there’s a big difference between safe and beneficial. The word safe implies that both the baby and the mother will not come to any harm in continuing whatever practice/sport she is used to doing. However, the real question we need to ask is – will it be of benefit? Does this exercise prepare you for a healthy delivery? Does this practice encourage the baby to rest in a position that will help during birth? And how will this help in post-natal recovery? Unfortunately there isn’t a huge amount of information out there and in many countries doctors favour c-section deliveries and so do not have the know-how about how to prepare a woman for a natural deliver. 

The two main body parts in question here are the abdominal muscles and the pelvic floor. During pregnancy the abdominals are stretched to the absolute maximum. The growing baby demands ample room and fortunately the female body is perfectly designed to do this. However, if we have a strong yoga or pilates practice which forces us to use a lot of deep core these muscles will be well developed and strong – great if our priority is a flat stomach but definitely not ideal for pregnancy. When stretched, these tight muscles are more likely to tear and due to their increased size are more likely to result in abdominal diasis. This isn’t to say that women with great abs can’t have a healthy pregnancy – on the contrary as long as they take the right measures they can have a great pregnancy and a healthy recovery – more to follow on how to do this! 

The pelvic floor also plays a major role in pregnancy especially if you are hopping for a natural delivery. The pelvic floor is often misunderstood and especially in the yoga world we have adopted an approach to engaging it which was predominantly taught by men who had little awareness of the subtleties of female anatomy. Women are also told to do Keggles (named after Dr.Keggle who invented them). Now as great as it is to have at least some kind of awareness down there, the problem with conventional Keggles is they involve a strong squeeze of the muscles which is often held for a period of time before being released. The pelvic floor muscles are like any other muscles in the body and they can be developed in a way that makes them strong and bulky or lean and flexible. Now I like to compare this to a body builder. A body builder lifts heavy weights in repeated repetitions in order to get his/her muscles as big and bulky as possible. In the end he/she can probably lift pretty heavy stuff but when they come to straighten their limbs the muscles are so tight they can’t! In bulking up the muscles flexibility has been sacrificed. I’m sure you can see where this is going – it is exactly the same for the pelvic floor. Now while it might seem like a good idea to have a tight pelvic floor, it can in fact lead to multiple complications during birth such as vaginal tearing, episiotomy, emergency c-section as well as cervical prolapse. 

Birth is about letting go. It is about allowing your body to do what it knows how to do and surrendering into that wisdom. The abdomen has to soften to expand and the pelvic floor has to open as wide as it possibly can. If we have spend our pregnancy trying to tighten these two muscles they simply will not be able to soften and open enough to allow the baby to pass through. If you are pregnant your priority needs to be teaching your abdomen how to soften, get in tune with your breathing and allow your exhale to deeply relax you. As you move through daily life ask yourself if you are holding tension in your body – if so can you release it? 

More to come in part 2!