Yoga for Pregnancy: Can you do Yoga in the first trimester?

Transcript

hi i'm dr melissa west and i'm standing out here in the rain under my umbrella to bring you our daily videos today's question comes to us from siri from the membership site and she says hi melissa i'm pregnant and i'm wondering if i continue to practice my normal yoga through the first trimester and then start prenatal yoga when i enter the second trimester or should i start prenatal yoga right away so congratulations on your pregnancies theory since you have been practicing yoga through uh prior to your pregnancy then you can continue on through your pregnancy anything that you do prior to your pregnancy you can generally continue on unless you're doing crazy sports like horseback riding or ziplining stuff like that people totally like pregnant ladies to do zip lining anything where you can fall of that's not a good idea but the most important thing to be concerned about in your first trimester is to keep cool through adequate hydration and appropriate clothing in your first trimester so in yoga we don't really heat up too much so there's not really too much they need to be worried about with that however if you do have a high risk pregnancy you might want to be concerned about poses that create heat in your body like twists or breath of fire like a palabati breath it's always important to listen to your body and stop if it doesn't feel right so definitely if you're practicing hot yoga not a good idea in the first trimester probably not a good idea in any trimester the second thing to consider in the first trimester is fatigue you will be tired so avoid prolonged or strenuous activity and exertion during your first trimester for every hour of exercise follow with an hour of rest so you're growing a baby don't underestimate how much effort this takes for your body to do and make sure you get plenty of rest finally your hormones will become you have a hormone in your body called relaxin and so your ligaments will become more relaxed because of this hormone and it's tempting to over stretch because it will feel good but remember because you've been doing yoga before remember what your normal range of motion is and work within your normal range of motion when your belly starts to get too big and the general population classes become cumbersome you can check out my pre-nagal yoga video so always remember to check in with your medical doctor and your ob gyn for your particular pregnancy and to get their advice as to what they think you should be doing for your particular pregnancy when it comes to exercise and yoga if you have any other questions or comments please leave them below thanks so much for a great question siri finding a great yoga class is becoming more costly and difficult now there's a better way to self-improvement in the privacy of your own home visit dr melissa west melissawest.com and start getting free weekly online videos real yoga for real people