Benefits of pregnancy yoga

Welcome to Yoga Me Pregnancy & Postnatal Yoga, here to support you through the transition to motherhood.

Yoga Me offers classic yoga adapted for pregnancy along with support for your emotional and psychological needs throughout this time.

Each class is designed to meet the needs of pregnant women by:

• Providing physical and emotional support for adaptation to change
• Providing an intellectual awareness of pregnancy and birth to enable choice
• Bringing an awareness to the power of the breath in enabling the body to function naturally
• Connecting mind, body and spirit to the process of pregnancy and birth
• Building deep connections between mother and baby
• Empowering women to understand their own bodies, and find comfort in classic yoga poses, for comfort in pregnancy, and as effective birth positions
• Creating a still mind, which helps us live in the present, and press pause
• Achieving restorative relaxation and inner peace, promoting contentment and restful sleep

Class structure and content

The classes will be based on the five elements of Birthlight yoga, which are:

• Ease of movement – yoga poses which are graceful, elegant and dignified, which flow together, which are simple and enjoyable, which do not involve stresses or strains and which are practical for integration into daily life.
• Ease and depth of breath – encouraging breathing which flows with women’s rhythms, which promotes an instinctive wisdom, which expands breathing capacity, which lengthens exhalation and which ‘breathes for two’.
• Pelvic awareness – supporting an awareness that all movements come from the pelvis, and encouraging movements that mobilize its full range. Creating an awareness of the role of the pelvic floor in pregnancy and in setting a foundation for a healthy spine, linking to the importance of good posture. Empowering women, through movement to tone and release the pelvic floor, to enable active birthing.
• Holistic practice – attending, through movement and discussion, to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of pregnant women, and new mums. Focusing on the connection of breath and movement to uniting the front and back of the body, and diagonal connections from shoulder to hip. Establishing breath, movement and emotions as one.
• Remembering the babies – focusing on the idea that pregnancy yoga is about mothers and babies together. Building a consciousness of mother’s breath as baby’s oxygen, and mother’s rhythm as baby’s rhythm. Awareness of the role of yoga in providing opportunity to build bonds.