The Maternal Health & Safety Awareness Post

Why Start Yoga?

Starting a family is an exciting time and no amount of planning can fully prepare you for the process. How you handle your physical and mental health during pregnancy will set the stage for the next phase of becoming a parent. It can not be overstated the importance of protecting your mental health. Pregnancy alone can bring about many hormone and chemical changes in your body regardless of your environment. As mentioned in Optimizing Maternal Health, undergoing a pregnancy puts strain on your body no matter how healthy you are.

Practicing yoga can benefit both your mental health and physical health during pregnancy. A study by Villar-Alises, Martinez-Miranda & Martinez-Calderon (2023), looked at the effects of prenatal yoga-based Interventions and how they could improve mental health during pregnancy. The study found that clinically, anxiety, depression and stress systems are highly prevalent in pregnant women (Villar-Alises, Martinez-Miranda & Martinez-Calderon, 2023). Women who participated in the study reported that incorporating yoga helped them to feel more empowered and to help them cope with the fear of childbirth. While the study demonstrated that yoga-based interventions were important to improve maladaptive mental health (anxiety, depression and stress), there were gaps in the different ways practitioners (OB/Gyn) referred patients to try yoga. 

Yoga on Your Own Terms

The best part about today’s society is the wealth of shared knowledge. You do not need to sign up for expensive yoga classes or hire a private coach. With your OB/Gyn’s permission you can simply open up your laptop or phone and find a video to guide you through. The following videos were carefully selected for all fitness levels: 

• Prenatal Yoga | 22-Minute Home Yoga PracticeYouTube·Yoga With Adriene·Aug 7, 2023
• 10 minute PRENATAL YOGA for Beginners (Safe for ALL …YouTube·SarahBethYoga·Feb 5, 2018
• Pregnancy Yoga For First Trimester (safe for all trimesters)YouTube·Pregnancy and Postpartum TV·Aug 28, 2020

Five Key Takeaways 

Health optimization is non-liner, never ending, and no prerequisites to start. Health optimization is important for all women during their pregnancy, but is even more detrimental for marginalized pregnant women. Developing plans to maximize your physical and mental health does not require you to have a medical degree. There is plenty of free information to help you on your journey. Remember to always include your doctor in any changes you make to your health activities. Listed below are five great ways to help keep you going:

• Schedule all of your prenatal appointments in advance and do your best to keep them. Mark your calendar ahead of time and notify your employer of your appointments.
• Try using videos on youtube to help you relax and meditate and practice yoga.
• Schedule 30-minutes a day of quiet time alone both in the mornings (15 min) and evenings (15 min). 
• Start a gratitude journal using the 5-rule ( write or think about five things you are grateful for when you wake up).
•  Build your pregnancy team and ask for help when you need it. You do not have to go it alone, you can employ people to lean on. See Choosing Your Birthing Team on how to buid your personal pregnancy team. 

References

Villar-Alises, O., Martinez-Miranda, P., & Martinez-Calderon, J. (2023). Prenatal yoga-based interventions may improve mental health during pregnancy: An overview of systematic reviews with meta-analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(2), 1556.