3 pregnancy yoga poses - for a better birth

How pregnancy yoga practices open the pelvis in pregnancy and birth.

Pregnancy yoga research.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that pregnancy yoga is a great activity for pregnant women. Research suggests that a regular practice lasting 60 minuets or more for MORE than 12 weeks can help to reduce anxiety lower depression and increase the liklihood of a vaginal delivery. See a systematic review here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8957136/

So what IS it about pregnancy yoga that helps to increase the likelihood of a vaginal birth?

My number one observation is that pregnancy yoga poses and or birth positions are a physical way of helping pregnant women to get to know and understand their bodies. A skill we are not often well versed in by our 20’s to late 30’s. Often we are SO in our own heads that we cannot jump straight into practices like hypnobirthing or breath work for birth because if feels too weird too uncomfortable too alien. So the physical pregnancy yoga poses first and foremost cultivate body awareness.

Once you have moved your body in a pregnancy yoga class you are more likely to be able to follow a guided meditation or do a breath practice. Meditation and breathing stimulate your vagus nerve and bring you into you rest and digest state. It is this activation that supports the reduction of anxiety and likelihood of antenatal and postpartum depression. A reduction of stress in pregnancy also positively impacts your baby too!

In my humble opinion after experiencing two of my own births and working with over 100 pregnant and postpartum women in the North East it is culmination of all of the yogic practices; Yoga poses, breath work and meditation that support birth. All three things inspire self acceptance, self love and inner knowing. For me personally it was only after embodying a regular practice over 4 years that REALLY helped me to have the exact birth I hoped for with my second baby. No single yoga pose or birth position was ever really going to help me to have a vaginal birth.

A Regular Practice in Pregnancy Yoga is best…

You see yoga poses and or birth positions in their own right are just not going to help you very much. Especially not if you just look at picture and think you’ll remember it in labour. Simply put you will not. Pregnant women need  to be doing these positions and moving in and out of them fluidly during their second and third trimester to create a muscle memory in the body. To understand how the pose FEELs and indeed how the pose effects their growing baby. It is only by repetition and feeling that you cultivate the self awareness and that you begin to trust your instincts. 

When it comes to actually birthing your baby there is some information that might help you and some simple poses that you can do every day without attending a class that may support your body awareness and muscle memory in finding the poses when the big day arrives. 

Your baby has to work its way through the pelvis you can split this into three sections and pair movements that will support the physiology of birth.

3 Pregnancy yoga poses to support a vaginal delivery

Early Labour Birth position

Pelvic inlet. Number one is the top part of your pelvis as pictured. Here anything that takes the legs wide with feet turned out is going to pull those two big bones away from each other to allow your babies head to descend into the pelvis. Adding sways side to side here will help to open one side then the other creating space for baby to descend. (It is worth noting here that your baby may have done this transition before you have your regular contractions) You may find that in the final weeks of pregnancy you naturally start to sit with legs wide and sway often when standing. (Because your body and your intuition are blooming awesome and they know that is what is required)

Established labour birth position

In the Video below I am working on lifting one hip bone a little higher than the other. This is great to create space in the middle of your pelvis. It can also REALLY help with pelvic girdle pain too!

Second is the mid pelvis and here shifting the one hip higher than the other again moving in and out as video’d below is going to really help to create space. This could be the longer bit of your labour where you spend some time opening and shifting walking kneeling swaying ANY movement is going to support this stage the important bit that a regular practice will bring is being able to tune into the movements your body wants you to make rather than something you have been TOLD to do.

Emergence of baby - birth position

Here my knees are in and feet are out, I have leaned back and tucked my tail bone under a little too to help lengthen my postirior pelvic floor. I love this pose especially in pregnancy. This knees in feet out style can be applied in lots of different ways. I look at ways to do this if you have had an epidural in my Online Pregnancy Yoga course.

And finally to give your baby as much space as possible to exit through the pelvic out let you want to be getting your knees in towards each other. I see SO many pregnancy yoga teachers telling mothers that the ideal poses or the only pregnancy yoga pose to practice is Goddess pose as pictured in number one and that is just not true.

The position above isn’t particularly natural for us to find in everdyay life. But anatomically it is a really great way t open the pelvic outlet. So practicing this regularly in pregnancy is really benifical. It can also help you to ease pelvic girdle pain too!

Pregnancy Yoga poses and Birth positions summary

In a nutshell a single pose or even three poses if all you do is look at the picture and think you know it is not going to help you one bit as you navigate a vaginal birth. If you want to really support yourself you need to dedicate time to understanding your body, becoming curious about how you think and feel and why that is. You need to activate your rest and digest state on a daily basis, ideally more than once a day. You might read that and think “but I don’t have time”, and that indeed maybe true. But this is important. This work will help your baby in utero. If you are anxious and stressed your baby gets exposed to higher cortisol levels, they absorb that energy. If you feel unsupported, frighted and scared your baby picks up on that. So investing the time in reducing stress and anxiety during pregnancy is investing in your baby as they are now. It will also support your birth.

A kind word from me

The work you do in pregnancy will change you as a woman and a mother forever. Becoming a mum is HUGE it is already life changing so lean into it. Take the time. It is time you will not regret spending both for you and your baby. 

It is not my intention scare or pressure here but simply to speak from truth and experience. You can have a vaginal unmedicated birth, you are made to do it. And if you do, the power you will get from the experience will be life changing. Unfortunately society has  made this quite difficult for us to achieve. We believe that birth is a trial that it is painful, unpleasant even dirty, because that is what we see in the media, that is what our mothers tells us, often our friends. So I need to be blunt to support my message. You are worthy of the birth you desire you can have it but it will take work. However it is certainly work that is worth doing.