The Benefits of Prenatal Yoga
From the minute you know you are pregnant, a good feeling accompanied by fear, a sense of duty, a touch for care creeps into the mind. Pregnancy can bring in a flood of conflicting feelings. Your surrounding becomes beautiful; you dream of a secured future for your new baby- who ever comes should be healthy. But simply praying and dreaming do not help much; you have to work on your own to make your dreams come true. You have to follow a routine life and apart from medication should try and practice yoga as well as meditation to fulfill your visions.
Yoga
The regular practice of certain yoga exercises ensures optimum health for the body and mind, and the unification of your physical, emotional and spiritual growth with that of the developing child. Yoga can help women get through their pregnancy with minimal discomfort. This also helps at the time of delivery as well as post-delivery stages. Yoga helps you to boost circulation and also help with fluid retention. The stretching exercises relieve aches and pains. Your posture that changes during the later stage of pregnancy is also improved by yoga which also help you ease back problems. Yoga brings strength, flexibility, relaxation, inner peace, and breath awareness. The parts of the body that yoga works on in particular, during pregnancy, are the stomach muscles, spine, back muscles and pelvis. This assures strength in the abdominal region which assist the carriage of the foetus and aid proper development.
The 5 most essential Yogas during pregnancy are:
Mooldhara Chakra Asana: using the leg and pelvic area. This brings relief from mental depression and labour pain.
Swadhisthana: relief from weak urinary and reproductive function, low libido, miscarriage or poor development of foetus.
Manipura: relief from headaches and muscles
Anahata: This relates to the circulatory and respiratory system, relationships, love, sense of touch and skin.
Vishuddhi: This relates to rational thought, speech, voice, communication, thyroid function, immune system and purification.
It should be remembered to consult your physician before starting with any form of exercise.
Meditation
Meditation is one of the most important things is to keep yourself physically and mentally fit and active during pregnancy. At this time women are prone to laziness and are inactive which results in complications during pregnancy and labour. Meditation particularly helps you to concentrate on your own mind and body; with the help of a trainer if you develop the correct way of breathing concentrating on your body parts bit by bit it helps in oxidation; thus making you feel more refreshed and fading away of any pain or uneasiness. Meditation also helps you wipe away all the unwanted fearful thoughts that come to your mind. It has been seen that those women who practice yoga and meditation during pregnancy incur less pain during labour and generally deliver a normal child.
