Pregnancy or Gestation is a period during which a female carries and nourishes her offspring inside her womb before its birth. During this period, a woman’s body undergoes many changes to support the baby until delivery.
Various pregnancy exercises help you prepare for a normal delivery. Bringing the baby to the optimal position during birth is essential, and that’s why you must prepare your pelvis for a desired and natural labor.
Being active and healthy during the entire term of pregnancy is desirable not just for the mother to enter normal delivery, but it is beneficial to the baby as well. You must have seen that a large number of women now join yoga classes or gyms and walk a lot to have a safe and healthy baby.
There are some exercises that you must start doing once you discover your pregnancy:
1. Walking: It is the most straightforward exercise that doesn’t require any specific equipment or skills. You can walk almost anywhere you feel like, be it your home, parks or on treadmills. Outdoor walking will expose you to sunlight which is suitable for Vitamin D synthesis in the body with the reasonable amount of fresh air.
2. Leaning: It’s necessary to lean forward to counteract the leaning back position that most of the time we are used to. You can lean forward on the tables, counters or the floor on your knees and palms (as if you are scrubbing the floor). This will pull back the baby to its optimal position. You can also do this with an exercise ball.
3. Proper Sitting: This is not an exercise generally but is very important. Your sitting posture during pregnancy affects the pelvis alignment, and a correct way to sit will strengthen the pelvic muscles. So, you must sit upright with your pelvis leaning slightly forward. To sit cross-legged is excellent as it is on the ball meant for exercise.
4. Butterflies: This exercise helps to open the pelvis and keeps the lower back limber. For this, you need to sit and fold your legs, making soles touch each other. Then flip your legs up and down.
5. Pelvic Rocks: For this, you need to get down on your knees and palms with legs apart and chin up. You can do this thrice a day for five minutes.
6. Forward-Leaning Inversion: This exercise helps the uterine ligaments to untwist and provide more space for the fetus which results due to the sedentary lifestyle and poor posture. For this, you need to kneel on the edge of the bed or couch and slowly go down with your hand touching the floor. Your back must be flattened and bottom at the highest position. Do this twice or thrice a day.
7. Optimal Sleeping Position: Sleeping on your left side is most advisable. It goes along with the gravity to provide an optimal birth position.
Incorporating these simple exercises will surely help you undergo healthy and natural childbirth which every woman desires.