Childbirth is like running a marathon, you have to train for it. Beverly Au finds out how
Pregnancy can be the most wonderful time in a woman’s life, but it can also be fraught with stressful challenges, as your body makes the biggest change of all, adapting itself for the birth of another human life. With the physical strain, the food cravings and the general effort required simply to get out and about, it becomes easy to let your body go. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
From the plethora of fitness techniques and mindand-body exercises available, pregnant women need only take their pick when putting together a well-rounded exercise programme. The best advice is to keep moving: it’s simple, the more you keep active before you give birth, the easier your life will be post-pregnancy. Time to talk prenatal Pilates, yoga, sophrology and more.
PREPARE WITH PRENATAL PILATES
The focus on breathwork, balance, control and alignment in Pilates make it a great candidate for prenatal workouts. To be clear, however, not all Pilates exercises are appropriate for pregnancy. The most important first step is finding an instructor who is prenatal-certified to help you navigate the necessary modifications. The good news is, there is so much you can do!
Prenatal Pilates exercises are modified throughout a pregnancy to suit the needs of your ever-changing body; special props and apparatus are used to ensure safety and comfort. Not only this but prenatal Pilates is a great way to exercise without putting undue stress on the joints, helping to keep you mobile and ready to recover shape and tone after birth.
Prenatal Pilates focuses on the deep core muscles and helps you maintain a strong connection to your pelvic floor. This will help prevent diastasis recti, pelvic floor dysfunction and back pain – common issues that arise from pregnancy. Prenatal Pilates helps with joint instability, muscular imbalances and ligament pain, all of which are common as baby grows. It also boosts breath connection, control and mechanics, which can make breathing more comfortable during pregnancy, and also during labour and delivery, enabling you to feel not just the contraction of the muscles but also the release.
ROLL OUT THE YOGA MAT
Improving strength, stamina, posture and breathing, yoga is another popular way to stay fit during pregnancy. In fact, a surprising number of women come to yoga for the first time when they are expecting because it’s such a soothing way to stay active. A range of techniques are covered, from physical exercises such as stretching to breathwork and meditation.
Amazingly, yoga can help rotate a breech or posterior baby, reducing the possibility of a caesarean section. Select poses can also shorten the birth canal up to 30% when practiced during labour and delivery, and squatting poses shorten the distance baby has to travel.
Breathing is, of course, the very essence of giving birth, that and body awareness. Prenatal yoga teaches forms of breath that can help alleviate heartburn and morning sickness, and help you push or control the urge to push during labour and delivery. Breathing techniques learnt in yoga class can also help to relieve the stress experienced by expectant mums as they wait for baby’s arrival.
Some prenatal yoga classes also focus on Savasana, which involves the complete and total relaxation of every part of your body. During 15-minute Savasana sessions, women are encouraged to centre themselves and meditate. It’s important to have a positive awareness of your child throughout your pregnancy, and post-meditation, expectant mums are encouraged to put their hands on their stomachs and have a conversation with their unborn child.
EXPERIMENT WITH HIP ALTERNATIVES
In France, where the method originated, Sophrology is one of the top four methods pregnant women use to get in shape, and it’s one of the top two in Korea. Sophrology, originating from yoga, provides quick, effective mind/ body exercises to boost relaxion, focus and wellbeing.
Sophrology helps improve sleep, concentration, selfconfidence, and above all, it helps pregnant women become aware of their bodies. Classes focus on four attitudes: no judgement, living each moment as though it were your first, putting any preconceived ideas into a box, and repeating all three again, asking how the body is reacting to each one.
Growing in popularity internationally, the selfhypnosis techniques of hypnobirthing use the power of suggestion to alleviate expectant mums’ fears in order to make pregnancy and labour less stressful and in some cases, less painful. The technique taps into a part of the brain that helps you cope with fear and anxiety.
Hypnosis during pregnancy won’t make you lose control or think you’re someone else. It’s a way of altering your awareness, so that your subconscious (feelings, memories, emotions) comes to the forefront, while your conscious (rational) mind takes a back seat. Hypnobirthing classes teach you to use deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, affirmations and hypnosis scripts. Once the analytical part of your mind relaxes, you become more receptive to positive suggestions and affirmations.
When it comes to using these self-hypnosis techniques during labour, the theory is this: if you’re scared, your body responds by producing adrenaline, a hormone that makes tense muscles more tense. This means your uterus has to work harder to contract and relax. With effective hypnosis, your breathing is more even, which means more oxygen reaches you and your baby. Stress can hinder the production of oxytocin (the hormone that controls contractions) and endorphins (the feel-good natural chemicals) and prolong labour. Staying relaxed helps with the ultimate goal – keeping the oxytocin flowing, so contractions are more effective and potentially less painful.
Other practitioners will tell you that acupuncture can be hugely beneficial for pregnant women, reducing morning sickness and alleviating back and pelvic pain. Acupuncture helps relax the nervous system and promote the release of endorphins, leading you to feel relaxed and at ease after each treatment. Some pregnant women find that acupuncture also helps improve their sleep quality. Acupuncture can help postpartum too. During your fourth trimester, after baby is born, acupuncture supports hormone rebalancing, and can help with breast milk production, fatigue and anxiety.
Being birth fit – physically, mentally and emotionally – involves releasing fear and focusing on the task ahead in a positive light. It’s about setting yourself an achievable exercise routine, and preparing mentally with hypnosis, visualisation, breathwork, touch relaxation and birth rehearsals. Whichever prenatal class you choose, or combination of classes, you will feel the benefit of meeting up with other mums-to-be to share birth plans, fears and feelings. Talking about your emotions and staying focused and fit mentally is hugely important during pregnancy – a good prenatal fitness class often doubles as a therapy session and support group.
Whatever your method, be sure to get clearance from your healthcare provider before undertaking a prenatal exercise programme. Get this sorted, and you are well on your way to a healthy, happy pregnancy.