Yoga is a fantastic all round exercise, focusing on mental and physical wellbeing. As a form of exercise for pregnancy, it has many benefits and a lot of women who participate in prenatal yoga classes wish to continue after they have given birth. If you have attended a pregnancy yoga class chances are your instructor will also hold postnatal or postpartum classes as well. The main benefits of attending post partum yoga classes are that it strengthens your pelvic floor and abdominal muscles, and helps you to maintain a healthy body weight, working towards getting back your pre-pregnancy body shape. Yoga is gentler than a lot of other exercises so if you do want to take it slowly this would be a great exercise to take part in. You are also usually able to start attending classes only six to eight weeks after giving birth, unless advised otherwise by your doctor.
Most postnatal yoga classes involve your newborn baby, and their involvement can be as simple as lying on the mat whilst you perform the asanas, or poses, to joining in with the poses. For the mother, as yoga focuses on both the mind and body, it can help relax the nervous system and balance out your hormones. As prenatal yoga works with your body to enable a healthier pregnancy, post partum yoga will place emphasis on strengthening the pelvic floor muscles, your abdomen muscles and your legs and back whilst also easing tension across your upper body and promoting a sense of wellbeing and confidence in your new role.
Post partum yoga classes are usually very gentle and can include lots of little games to amuse your baby and gentle exercises to encourage stretching and the development your baby's posture. Yoga can also help with poor circulation, poor digestion and constipation in babies. Other benefits include strengthening your baby's spine, increasing your baby's awareness of his/her own body and confidence, promoting flexibility and suppleness of their joints and muscles and encouraging the development of co-ordination skills.
If you do decide to attend a post natal/post partum yoga class don't be concerned about how your baby will react. Whilst some babies will thrive in the new environment and actively take part, others may fret and cry a lot and take some time to settle in. Your yoga instructor will be used to this and you shouldn't be alarmed or embarrassed in any way as each child is different and will react to new situations in totally different ways. Remember that you are in a room with other new mums who are all sharing similar experiences and will be feeling the same anxieties. In fact you may even make some new lifelong friends.
Written by Cat Scrivens
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