YOGA DURING PREGNANCY
The process of the human being's formation starts
in the fetal period, developing, for example, the sensorial
sensitiveness that is the perception of the sound or of the
light. The baby grows according to the quality of the first
contacts with the mother. Through my working experience of
prenatal prevention, I can state that first of all that
pregnancy has to be accepted both on a physical and
psychological level. This is, at any rate, the first step for
living with awareness, calmly and happily one of the most
beautiful and growing moment in a woman’s life.
A second step is made considering, from a psychological point of
view, the natural fear that assails a primipara in particular.
It has to be tackled on a field that she doesn’t know and this
state of tension contrasts with the qualities required to
maintain the health and the serenity necessary for a good course
of the gestation.
The continuous changes both on a psychological and on a physical
level are often the cause of diseases. On a physical level, for
example, there could be bothersome diseases to the vertebral
column: while the fetus grows up, the weight of the mother
increases, obliging her to assume a different posture that
changes the natural structure of the lumbar-sacral area and this
is generally cause of suffering.
If the mother, in addition, didn’t get a serious training of the
breathing before the pregnancy, she will soon have problems,
because the diaphragm, while the fetus grows up, rises making
the breathing more difficult.
So, here you have some yoga exercise you can do at home, I will
explain them to you in these pages to help you coming through
this moment, turning it in a period of psycho-physical wellness:
the first easy exercise consists in staying “on all fours”,
focus on the lumbar area of the vertebral column and let the
movement springs just from this point. While you breathe slowly
in (the movement has to last as long as the duration of the
breathing) you arch your back, bring down the kidneys turning
the head backward. When you breathe out, on the contrary, move
the vertebras upward one-by-one and bring your chin as close as
possible to the sternum.
The dynamic has to be repeated paying attention both to the
movement of the vertebral column and to the breathing. The
exercise, it’s easy to understand, unblocks and makes the
vertebral column flexible and gives the opportunity to develop a
complete breathing, active on the whole three areas: the
abdominal, pectoral and collarbone ones. In the Yoga, this kind
of breathing is called Viagra-pranayama or breathing of the
tiger. It can be practiced by everyone and has no
contraindications and during the whole pregnancy, giving many
benefits. When you feel tired, anyway, lie on your side on the
floor and rest. The side you choose has to be the one where the
fetus should have the back.
While you lie down in this position you can practice the
awareness of the body, helping the state of relaxation. At the
same time keep the awareness of the breathing. Examine the flow
and the drain of the air and promote the complete naturalness
and freedom of expression in the respiratory act. In this way,
we remove tensions and psychological obstacles that originate
from sensitiveness.
After some minute of this last practice, you should sit down,
cross your legs, start a meditation on the “orientated”
breathing: breathe in slowly and deeply, thinking that the
breath inhaled through the nostrils goes down the vertebral
column to the solar plexus. Hold for some second (without
strain) and at the same time visualize the energy, moved to the
belly through the breath, going into the baby’s little body.
Breathe out (always through the nostrils) thinking that the
negativity leaves your body through the breathing out.
Finally, I point out that the most important
thing before the childbirth is to live it yielding to that
benefic force of the nature that is in the birth of your baby
by Amadio Bianchi