Precautions For Pregnancy Yoga

In doing pregnancy yoga, be careful when performing twists--twist more from the upper body. Twisting the lower torso can put too much pressure on the abdomen. It will likely be uncomfortable anyway.

Be careful of overstretching. The hormone relaxin relaxes your joints and ligaments in preparation for birth, and it can be easy to stretch too far and cause injury.

Be careful of overstretching your abdominal muscles in back bends. All I could do was a very slight arch of the upper back looking up with my head. Even if you feel you can do full back bends--go slowly and be mindful.

Be careful of placing pressure on the abdomen. This includes postures in which you lay on your belly, as well as postures in which your heel or foot is compressing the belly.

If you feel unstable during standing poses, use a wall or a chair for balance.

Do not lay on your back for more than a few minutes when doing pregnancy yoga after the first trimester. Laying on your back for long periods of time can compromise blood flow to the baby.

Do Savasana (corpse or relaxation pose) on your side not on your back. Laying on your left side if particularly good to facilitate blood flow to the baby although the right side is fine as well. Use a pillow to support your neck and your top leg if you need to.

You will need to widen your stance as pregnancy progresses and your belly gets bigger. When performing forward folds, you will need to widen your legs and/or not fold all the way forward.

Inversions such as headstands, shoulder stands, plow etc. or extreme back bends like the wheel, full cobra, and camel, during the third trimester, are best left to very experienced yoga practitioners--even then you may discover that they are uncomfortable.

As always, when you are doing pregnancy yoga, listen to your body and your baby and BACK OFF or STOP if anything doesn't feel right.

Downward facing dog works well as a modified inversion and a modified bridge pose works well if you feel in need of a back bend. You may want to avoid jump backs and jump throughs.

This is not to provide you with a list of "don'ts", it is simply a few things to be mindful of.

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