Yoga for birth: Part 1: The breath

Yoga is amazingly helpful and effect to help address so many of the aches and pains of pregnancy and also offers a powerful time for you to connect with your ever-changing body and bring balance to energy and emotions during this roller coaster ride. People often look to yoga to help support them during birth as well. The thing is there is no magic yoga pose that will be helpful in birth, but what yoga can help you do is learn how powerful your body is, strengthen your body in preparation for the physical needs of birth and help you connect to your breath which is the one thing you will have with you as a tool throughout your entire birth. 

​Here's Part I of a four part series on how yoga can support you during birth...

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Connect to Your Breath
The breath is the one thing that will be there with you from the start of your labor to the end (and also into new parenthood to boot, which definitely calls for some deep breaths from time to time!). Breath is the number one thing students have told me that they have taken from their yoga practice into childbirth, no fancy yoga poses, nothing complicated, just breath. You can start this connection to breath a number of ways in your yoga practice:

• Link your inhales and exhales to movement in poses: you might flow in and out of Warrior II and as you do connect that flow to your breath.
• Practice soma vritti: its name might sound complicated, but this breath is super simple, the practice is to match the inhale to the exhale allowing them to become the same length. 
• Practice lengthening your exhale: any time we can lengthen our exhale to our inhale we can help calm our nervous system. Start with the soma vritti practice and then gradually let your inhale lengthen to your exhale.