Within the pregnancy yoga classes that I teach, I also incorporate aspects of active birth education too. It creates a more rounded class and allows context for many of the postures that lend themselves from yoga into the birth environment.

Squats are often discussed, and I like to offer two variations where the labouring woman feels totally supported. It also means that she is not bearing all the weight and effort.

Below you will find the variations I teach:

[Featured image: Google]

Regularly in class I'm heard to cue with the words, "lengthen your invisible zip".

I use all sorts of cues with everyday objects to enable women to understand the function of their bodies in an easier way.

artwork by Rita Loyd www.NurturingArt.com

Produced with permission

“So great that you had just taught us contraction breathing techniques, this got me through 12 hours of 1st stage labour at home without any medication & just a bit of extra help from swaying on a swiss ball.

Thanks again for a brilliant pregnancy yoga course”.

A study published in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology found that women who ate dates daily during the final month of pregnancy were less likely to need induction of labour, as opposed to non-date eaters.

There's more!

When arriving at hospital, these women had also progressed further (were more dilated) and laboured in seven hours or less!

Melinda Johnson of Academy of Nutrition & Diatetics says that it would seem dates have a compound that mimics the hormone oxytocin (which causes contractions).

Taking time for ourselves is tricky, especially when we find ourselves multi-tasking most of the day. Considering our own needs can become something of a distant memory.

Set yourself up for the day with a really nutritious breakfast - it can be made in advance and the good thing is the quantities you make can keep you going for several days.

No more grabbing an unexciting piece of toast or a handful of biscuits, this will really boost you on many levels.

This week, I spoke with Emma who is a Personal Trainer and is now 32 weeks pregnant and has been attending the yoga classes since she was 14 weeks.  Here's what she had to say about the sessions...

How often have you started to read something and had the thought that the author was writing about you?  Or when you’ve seen someone on television talking of their experience and it echoes yours, almost as if they had taken it word for word?

Well that’s the power we are trying to uncover behind our project “Women’s Voices of PND”.  It started out as an idea and has grown. 

The journey to its inception comes from the difficulties experienced with pregnancy and postnatal depression.

I had originally signed up for pregnancy yoga a couple of years ago, when I became pregnant with my first baby. I didn't manage to make it to a single class! I was always so sick or in hospital on a drip that I never even met Claire!

We finally met when I signed up for baby yoga after the traumatic birth of my first baby. Even after having written in red ink on the birth plan no
C-SECTION I ended up having a c-section! I was distraught, still I had a beautiful, happy baby.