Postnatal Yoga - MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

I started thinking about the benefits of postnatal yoga shortly after birth of our second son, now almost three years ago. My key experience was attending a prenatal yoga class (yoga for pregnant women), seven weeks after delivery. I had been asked to take over this class as soon as possible. As I had never attended a real prenatal class myself, I met the previous teacher and took part in her final sessions to learn about the sequencing and to meet my new students. 

We practiced easy exercises, which I personally would have found almost too easy in the final month of pregnancy. But I will never forget the sore muscles I had the next day! Suddenly I realized that I still had to go a long way back to normal, although I had felt fit enough for more.

While preparing and trying out the sets for my new pregnancy class, I refreshed and broadened my knowledge about the different layers of (abdominal) muscles and how to tone them, the importance of a strong pelvic floor and good alignment during and after pregnancy – and realized what I had done wrong before. 

Now I understood why I have had issues with my bladder after my first pregnancy! Being a passionate runner I could not wait to re-start my running exercises. I already practiced postnatal exercises in a course led by my midwife, and felt fit and healthy shortly after delivery. After about twelve weeks I thought the time was right for a bit of running. I felt great! I had no problems to run 30 minutes with only one or two short walking intervals, and started to increase intensity and distance in the following weeks. I also re-started exercising in a gym, practicing the same exercises I did before pregnancy, only with less weight. I felt good, except for a bit of back pain - and my frequent need of a toilet.

Today I know that I obviously started too early with running. My pelvic floor muscles had still been too weak to hold my organs in place when bouncing up and down during the run. Furthermore I think I have practiced too many abdominal exercises in the gym causing the organs to sink down and creating pressure on my bladder. This never healed properly until I gave birth to our second son, and my midwife insisted on practicing pelvic floor and simple abdominal exercises. 

I was desperate to help women to avoid doing the same mistakes, and I also wanted to fill the gap between the already popular prenatal yoga and the normal yoga classes, which are not suitable for new mums. And this is when I started to teach postnatal yoga. 

With the assistance of my midwives, my gynaecologist, a number of fellow yoga teachers and students who have children themselves I developed the sequences for my first postnatal yoga sessions. 

Of course, a postnatal class, especially when including the babies, is very much different from a “normal” class for both, teacher and client. And it can be really exhausting for a teacher as you need to change your program within seconds when the babies start crying or are unhappy for some reason. But what I loved – and still love – is sharing my experience with other mums and see their improvement of posture and health every week.

My clients keep telling me that they are surprised about the positive effects of postnatal yoga. They believe that they would not have recovered that quickly without practicing in the class at least once a week, and they appreciate my ideas for including yoga in their daily life. Some even tell me that attending my classes after their second or third pregnancy helped them to get rid of issues related to pregnancy and birth they have had for years, and this fact makes me more than happy.

However, what helps me most of all when teaching postnatal classes is my personal experience, both, the bad and the good one. Be sure, there is no need to try out the wrong way yourself!

Carmen Weghaus, Yoga teacher at innersmile Yoga & Health