Adapting yoga to mum and baby’s needs together at this time seems preferable to a prescriptive list of do’s and don’ts. This means identifying practices that are gentle, suitable for all mothers yet true to the essence of yoga as body-based nurture for the self. Given the ever shifting schedules of the postpartum until baby routines are established (let’s be confident), a few minutes of yoga at a time can support the priorities of new mothers: quality rest, adjusting to holding and feeding a baby, re-owning one’s body while forging a new identity and, last but not least, actively bonding with the small person who lived inside for nine months. 

Doing yoga with one’s newborn from the early days is a wonderful way of getting to know him or her, synchronizing rhythms of rest, feeding and activity through the days and nights. 

The inspiration for Birthlight came from the Peruvian Amazon where I conducted my fieldwork in anthropology for Cambridge University. I observed the wonderful ways in which the Amazonian families in rainforest communities handled and cared for the pregnant women, new mothers and babies and they helped me to apply these ideas to my own family.  As a yoga practitioner, back in the UK I found that postnatal practices from the Indic cultural tradition of Ayurveda and popular infant massage and handling were similar to those of my Amazonian hosts. Years of teaching, research  and collaboration with other Birthlight tutors underlie the integrated progressive practices that now constitute Birthlight postnatal yoga.

As a major life transition, giving birth, particularly for first time mothers, is inevitably stressful with both negative and positive stressors.

We offer six Birthlight sets  that include various combinations of restorative yoga, gentle stretches, breathing and relaxaion  to ensure that new mothers access the deep rest and physical refreshment  they need to care for their babies without feeling exhausted. 

Breathing awareness helps new mothers to respond appropriately to their babies rather than reacting out of tiredness or frustration: yoga induces us to feel compassion for babies’ helplessness and dependence and to hold them in relaxed and loving ways when they cry in physical or psychological pain. 

The Birthlight Core practices continue to guide our teaching in the postnatal period.

• Grounding, centering practices, finding the body’s postnatal alignment while holding baby now in arms
• Breath awareness and using extended exhalations to connect with the deep core muscles and pelvic floor
• Connecting with self and baby through breath, sound, touch, thought and intuition, encouraging attachment and bonding
• Relaxation making use of diverse techniques to access deep relaxation and a meditative state, even with baby in arms
• Micromovements that work with the deep pelvic muscles and ligaments, the core and the pelvic floor muscles
• Flowing, moving Asanas that contain the essence of classic postures without straining the postnatal body, that prevent and alleviate common ailments of the postpartum and help close and realign the body
• Birthlight walks to stabilise and tone while carrying baby
• Safe transitions to keep pelvis and spine aligned during practice and in daily life.
• Isotonic practices to strengthen and stabilise pelvis and core
• Sound practices to calm parent and baby and access the relaxation response of the Parasympathetic nervous system

Main points for teaching yoga practices for birth recovery

1.    All deep breathing helps the organs find their place in the abdomen again, especially the large intestine. Deep breathing is calming, promoting more oxytocin release and reducing stress hormones.

2.    Once that baby is on the outside, the parent may lose their ability to connect with themselves. Help them slow down and re-connect to their breath inside their own body.

3.    Prepare your students for the transition to parenthood during the prenatal classes. Nurture of the soul is what people need most. Postnatal depression has a lot to do with this lack of community and feeling isolated and alone, so foster relationships in your classes.

4.    Combat societal and individual pressures of having to “get back to normal”. Foster an attitude of “looking forward” to a new state of normal in the body, to the new circumstances at home and in relationships. There is a lot of power and personal growth that can happen if the parent is supported in this evolution.

5.    Make the practices simple so they can be easily integrated into daily life. It is very important to be able to take practices home, to do whilst feeding, talking to friends or in bed, otherwise it may become another demand.

Obviously, with all of these large muscle groups attaching to the pelvis, it is clear that for the pelvis to function, it needs to remain stable to support our upper body weight and vital organs and transmit it down to the legs. This is crucial to prevent injury, for good posture and for us to move around. If the pelvis is unstable it has negative repercussions on the spine and the entire body.