Exercises to prepare for childbirth

Childbirth can be compared to a marathon in a lot of ways. You could run a marathon with no training or preparation but you probably won’t get a desired outcome. While you can birth a child without any preparation, you probably won’t get the desired outcome. Diet, attitude, spiritual health, enviroment, and exercise all play a factor in preparing for labor and delivery.

It is encourged to get exercise throughout your entire pregnancy. Now, don’t go enter into a weightlifting competition, in fact, heavy weight training isn’t ideal. Great choices are yoga, pilates, light cardio, swimming, dancing (great for a endorphin boost), yardwork.

At home stretches are a great option, low commintment, and easy to intergeate into daily life. Here is a few:

1. Child’s pose

This yoga pose helps lengthen pelvic floor muscles and ease discomfort.

Kneel down and sit on your heels. Then lean forward slowly and walk your arms out long in front of you. Breathe deeply. You also can rest your elbows on the ground in front of you with your hands supporting your head. As your belly grows, you may need to spread your knees farther apart to create space. If it’s uncomfortable to sit your backside on your heels, you can sit up higher.

Take care to not raise your hips above your heart.

2. Deep squat

Deep squats help relax and lengthen the pelvic floor muscles and stretch the perineum.

Stand with your legs wider than hip width. Slowly squat down as far as you can go with your hands pressed together in front of you.

3. Quadruped cat/cow

This yoga pose helps ease discomfort and decrease lower back pain.

Get on your hands and knees. Exhale and round your back as you tuck your chin toward your chest. Then inhale and gently arch your back downward and look up at the sky.

4. Perineal massage

Perineal massage lengthens and softens the tissues of the perineum. You can start this at 35 weeks of pregnancy. Perform this massage technique for 10 minutes once a day.

Take a warm bath or hold a warm compress on the perineum for 10 minutes to help you relax before the massage.

Sit or lean back in a comfortable position. Put a water soluble lubricant on your thumbs and perineum. Place your thumbs 1 to 1.5 inches inside your vagina. Press downward toward the rectum and to the sides until you feel a slight burning, stinging, or tingling sensation. Hold the pressure for two minutes until the area becomes numb. Breathe deeply and concentrate on relaxing the muscles.

As you continue to press down with your thumbs, slowly and gently massage back and forth over the sides of your vagina in a U movement for three minutes.

Relax and repeat the process once.