Prenatal yoga and your pelvic floor
This week a student had a great question in my prenatal yoga Canberra class - how hard you should hold your pelvic floor muscles when doing yoga?
There are two main times you will engage your pelvic floor – in short, quick time such as when you need to sneeze, and in longer or weightbearing times such as when you are holding a standing posture or lifting a weight.
Training pelvic floor muscles (kegel exercises) are slightly different to the instructions for engaging pelvic floor that you hear in a yoga class. In the yoga class, we are aiming to hold the muscles without them fatiguing, as part of the core strength that supports your torso and posture. So we only engage lightly and ensure we can hold the muscles for a long time, and we use the ‘core stability’ muscles of the transverse abdominus to turn on those pelvic floor muscles.
However, in doing pelvic floor strengthening exercises (kegels) on their own, the instructions are to tire the muscles, so that they strengthen. Thus you hear the instruction to hold them ‘as tightly as you can’.
Only one problem - if you’re not doing them correctly, you could actually be doing yourself damage. Pelvic floor exercises are not easy to do correctly, or easy to describe – and this is why up to a quarter of women don’t do them correctly (research by Moen et al 2009). If you bear down instead, you’ll be doing it wrong – with implications for prolapse and incontinence in the long run.
That’s why my physio recommends all women receive individual training with an ultrasound machine to assess exactly what you’re doing. It’s better to do it during pregnancy than afterwards, when your pelvic floor might be harder to feel.
I would also recommend that if you EVER have any incontinence in pregnancy, even a little when you sneeze, do something about it. It could be a sign that you might not be doing your pelvic floor exercises correctly.
I also find that having a close look at a diagram of pelvic floor muscles can really help. The side view is the common one you see, but the view from below is very instructive.
Rebecca Perry
Prenatal yoga Canberra – the importance of core stability in pregnancy
The dynamics of your spine change during pregnancy as your spine adapts to the additional weight of your baby. This additional weight can often lead to poor posture and back pain. But with prenatal yoga, you can do a lot to help this.
In prenatal yoga, it’s important to focus on the flexibility and strength of the spine, to prevent or alleviate back pain and stiffness.
One of my favourite prenatal yoga practices is Dru Yoga’s ‘Energy Block Release 1’, modified appropriately for pregnancy. This sequence moves the spine in all directions and pumps energy upwards, releasing stiffness and blocked energy. This Energy Block Release (or EBR) is at the core of each of the Canberra Prenatal Yoga classes. (And it’s easy too!)
One of the important points in doing EBR1 is to stabilise your core stability muscles before beginning, and check in during the practice to make sure you’re maintaining that stability in your core muscles. I’ve talked about the core stability practices earlier, and it’s really important that you understand what it feels like, and use this core stability at all times in the yoga program.
In fact it’s worth engaging your core stability muscles whenever moving your spine while you’re pregnant (just lightly is enough unless you’re lifting a heavy weight – try not to do this anyway!). Core stability should become a habit, setting you up for a quick recovery from birth and preventing any back issues postnatally.
Rebecca Perry, Canberra Prenatal Yoga
Surround yourself with love and support
How do you feel when you are with people who affirm your strength and love you unconditionally? There is often a feeling of being able to relax and be yourself, and express your needs and emotions when you are surrounded by love and support. All good things for birth!
You can choose the information that you read and listen to in your pregnancy. If it doesn’t make you feel empowered and positive about your innate ability to birth your baby, maybe you don’t need it right now.
As much as possible, try to spend time and talk to people who are positive about pregnancy and your ability to birth your baby. You can even politely refuse when a friend – or sometimes a complete stranger – feels the need to tell you negative or ‘horror’ stories of ‘a woman I know who…’.
There is so much wonderful, empowering information and resources for pregnant women. Books such as Watson and Hyles’ ‘25 Ways to Awaken Your Birth Power’ (which has this theme as one of its affirmations), Ina May Gaskin’s ‘Spiritual Midwifery’, England and Horowitz’s ‘Birthing from Within’ are great places to start.
And think about what kind of environment and people most support you for birth. If you’re planning a birth in a hospital, are you confident your carers are supportive of your birth wishes? Many women choose to have a doula or another woman with experience in birthing to support them and their partner, to help keep the birth environment precious and emotionally safe. (See blog on doulas for more info and links to Canberra doulas.)
Rebecca Perry, Canberra Prenatal Yoga
Be strong – the importance of core strength in pregnancy
Pregnant women have everything to gain from maintaining or increasing their strength while pregnant.
The most important aspect of strength is that relating to core stability and pelvic floor muscles. The core stability muscles are the deep abdominals (Transverse Abdominis) and deep spinal muscles (the Multifidus), which work together with the pelvic floor to provide internal support and stability for your torso. These muscles become even more important when pregnant to maintain a neutral spine (where the spine is not flexed, extended, twisted or tilted and is balanced around the central axis of gravity). A neutral spine position supports and protects the spine, maintains good posture and avoids many pregnancy-related problems such as back pain and ligament laxity.
All postures and exercises in your prenatal yoga class should begin with activation of these important core stability muscles.
And a bit more on pelvic floor:
Strong pelvic floor muscles facilitate birth and are less likely to tear than weak pelvic floor muscles. They will also help with a faster recovery from your birth and reduce the risk of prolapse. You need to be strengthening your pelvic floor muscles during pregnancy through repeated contractions of your pelvic floor muscles (these are sometimes called Kegels). How do to this is a big topic and needs its own blog (coming soon!) or come and learn more in our prenatal yoga class.
Rebecca Perry, Canberra
www.canberraprenatalyoga.com.au
Birthing with your right brain
There's a lot of information out there for pregnant women about pregnancy and birth that is logical, instructive, and engages your left brain. But the problem is, women don't birth with our left brains, meaning that everything you 'know' in your head before birth will go out the window as soon as you get into the swing of labour. By contrast, the right brain, which works imaginatively, subsconciously and emotively, is in control in a free-flowing birth process. Women who let the right brain take over in pregnancy, during birth and in the early days of mothering are able to birth and mother instinctively. (Interestingly, if you think that your right brain has taken hold during pregnancy - ever heard of 'pregnancy brain'? - you may be right. Studies have shown the right brain does increase in size during pregnancy. This is a good thing - use it.)
So you might want to practice and encourage your right brain, and learn to trust the messages it is giving you. Here is where yoga comes in. It gives ideal practice in listening to your body, awakening the heart, meditating, deep conscious breathing, visualisation and affirmation. Or you might also like journaling, drawing and writing.
Women often say that they found they were doing some of the poses from prenatal yoga in labour, not consciously ("I think I'll try Child's Pose now") but instinctively. That is because through practice your body remembers the feeling of those positions and moves naturally to favour them.
Remember that the key to deeply instilling new messages via right brain activities such as yoga and visualisation is practice, so start as early in pregnancy as you like. If you'd like to know more about prenatal yoga classes, go to www.canberraprenatalyoga.com.au.
All that said, I'm a big reader myself and must have read more than a dozen books on pregnancy and birth while I was pregnant with my first child. I wouldn't have done that differently in hindsight, because I think I needed to know 'about' natural birth to be able to counteract the sometimes negative mass of information from my hospital and other sources. That's why I have a reading list for my students and encourage them to investigate some of the better books on natural birth (I'll tell you what I think they are in future blogs) But it wasn't enough, and I knew that for my second birth I would need to engage my right brain in changing my key beliefs. I can't begin to tell you what a difference it made.
I'll leave you to consider one of my favourite quotes, from Michel Odent.
“I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.” –Michel Odent
Rebecca Perry, Canberra
Live each moment of your precious pregnancy
How much do you think about your impending birth? In my first pregnancy, I thought about it a lot - not just every day, but a few times a day at least towards my approaching due date. Thinking about birth can become all-consuming, and in this you can miss out on living the moments of pregnancy that are so special.
Reflect that each pregnancy is unique, and you will never have this moment, in this pregnancy, again. This awareness grew with me in my third pregnancy, when I reflected that this would be my last pregnancy, and that soon this amazing state of grace, of having my baby nestled inside my body, of the fullness and depth of my beautiful pregnancy, would be just a memory. This moment of being able to communicate with my baby just through my breath, internal messages transmitted by my hormones (if I relax and feel calm right now, that flows through into my baby), is a moment to be fully awake to and enjoyed.
Take the opportunity to notice each sensation, each movement of your baby, with a sense of curiosity and aliveness. This is special, this is now! Try to notice without judgement, just as an impartial observer might.
And ironically this may be one of the best things you can do to prepare for birth. How? If you can cultivate the ability to live in the present moment, when you come to labour, you will be more able to maintain that state of mind - to be in the present. Being in the present in labour, alert to each sensation, helps you to move as you need to with contractions, and rest fully and calmly between them. Furthermore, it's not possible to be a state of fear or worry about the future, the next stage of labour or 'what might happen', when you are only focussed on what you are experiencing right now.
So stop reading, reflect inward - what are you experiencing right now?
Rebecca Perry, Canberra
www.canberraprenatalyoga.com.au
Connect with your baby
One of the beautiful things about prenatal yoga is the reminder it gives you to connect with your baby, and deepen that special bond that is developing. But you don't have to wait until your weekly class to take the time to connect with your baby. Any time is a good time!
You can sing to your baby, talk to him or her, or gently massage your belly, particularly any of those little bumps that push out from time to time (elbow? knee?). You can tell your baby how much you love him or her and you are looking forward to a wonderful birth experience together.
But one of the most important things to do is to listen. Find a quiet moment, let your breath settle, and imagine that you are breathing right down to your baby. Tune your awareness into any sensations around your baby and what you can feel on the inside. Adopt an attitude of listening. Many women who do this regularly report that they intuitively feel that they receive messages from their baby. Does this also help to make you more sensitive to your baby's needs and what they are trying to tell you when they are born? It may be so. In any case it is a beautiful exercise - give it a try.
Rebecca Perry
www.canberraprenatalyoga.com.au
Welcome to yoga Canberra – prenatal yoga
This blog is all about prenatal yoga, for Canberra women wanting to have a positive pregnancy and birth experience. We’ll discuss guidelines for your yoga practice during pregnancy, and ways to make your pregnancy happy and healthy. And of course, you’ll find tools for labour and birth and learn how yoga can help you to have a wonderful birth experience. On this blog you’ll also find recommendations for local services in the Canberra region, inspiring birth stories, postnatal topics and much more.
If you would like to join our specialist prenatal yoga classes in Canberra follow this link to canberraprenatalyoga.com.au