Week 25: The Pelvis

This week I will move freely from the point where my upper and lower body meet, where movement in the spine is initiated and where my precious growing baby is cradled in the pelvis.

… adapted from The Yoga of Pregnancy book by Mel Campbell …

Asana for the Week

Standing Pelvic Rotations

For this pose I will need a yoga mat. This pose is suitable for all stages of my pregnancy.

• Standing on my yoga mat with my feet slightly wider than hip distance apart, I hold you in my hands
• Softly I bend my knees
• I begin tilting my pelvis backwards and forwards, using the same movement as in t he Cat sequence described in week 16. I arch my spine and open my chest (a) when I inhale and scoop my tailbone under, rounding my back, as I exhale (b).
• I practice this a few times
• Then I begin to gently sway my hips from side to side. Keeping my spine straight, I take both my hips over to the right and then over to the left, repeating this several times on each side.
• Combining all four movements, I move like a belly dancer, circulating my hips and rotating my pelvis in a clockwise direction
• I then repeat it all in an anticlockwise direction.
• I play some music and together we dance
• I call it my birthing dance.
• Mindfully I repeat this week’s affirmation:

My pelvis is designed to fit the shape of my baby’s head

Pregnancy Yoga: Standing Pelvic Rotations (a)

Pregnancy Yoga: Standing Pelvic Rotations (b)

Being prepared

My husband Matt catching Evi when she was born

The birth experience can be filled with wonder and anxiety both for the mother and for her birthing partner, so it is important for both of you to feel empowered. The mother can do this through the practice of PreNatalYoga, to help her body, mind and well-being and her birthing partner can be invited to share this with her.

By creating a tool box of different soothing, empowering and relaxing techniques, her birthing partner can use these to dip in and out to help create a labour of love and a wonderful birthing experience.

So, often we are wrapped up in designing the birth of our desire we forget about the journey of getting there.

Just like our partner made us feel special, loved, nurtured and nourished during the creation of baby, we need to feel the same comfort, love and support during the delivery of the baby. We have to remember this is our baby and our delivery and birth.

Empower yourself and take control.

Create a loving environment to help stimulate those love hormones which will ride through you and carry you through the birth experience. Have faith in yourself. As a birthing partner learn affirmations and breathing techniques to support the mother. Do them together. Make sounds together, give her a massage, make her laugh (it releases tension in the pelvic floor), move together, give her a massage, have tantric sex!

Please listen to my dear friend, Mark talk about his birthing experiences, when birthing his five children.
As I watched Mark tell his story I saw the array of emotions which were stirred as he told the story of the birth of his family. I saw the unravelling and processing of all that went on, things that he didn’t realize until now, as he got swept away with the births. I saw the growth of all what the experiences taught him and the strength of his love and fire. It is beautiful, a wonderful gift he shares with us and thank-you him for doing so.
Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you.

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There are lots of pregnancy yoga resources online available to busy mum’s and mums-to-be.

Sometimes it’s easier to do a pregnancy yoga class at home.

If you do a search online you will find many streaming yoga classes, downloadable DVDs, audio webcasts etc.

For me personally when I want to be led, rather than do my own practice, I like to follow a class on yogaglo or download an audio on itunes.

My own Yoga of Pregnancy DVD is available now!