The benefits of yoga during my pregnancy
I believe yoga significantly helped me progress through three pregnancies in five years with minimal discomfort. During the three trimesters I practiced yoga between one to three times per week and only ceased my practice two weeks prior to my due date. I’m convinced that my yoga practice prevented me from experiencing severe back pain, edema or gaining excessive weight. The combination of physical postures, breathing exercises and meditation gave me a balance in body and mind throughout each pregnancy, labor and delivery.
Practicing yoga provided me with the opportunity to focus on myself, my baby and my body. Particularly with the second and third child, it provided me with some time-out from my busy mummy life :-).
I found that there were also many benefits post pregnancy. For example, I did not experience any problems with incontinence or other pelvic floor muscles issues. My only remaining challenge is the 1.5 to 2 finger gap between the two rectus abdominis muscles (commonly known as diastasis recti) which has never completely closed.
I`m hoping that the yoga teacher course will help enhance my own exercise technique as well as providing me with the knowledge to improve my body alignment and the use of important muscles such as the M. transversus abdominis. In turn, I hope to be able to close the gap in my own rectus abdominis muscles J
