Yoga Exercises To Combat Prenatal Back Pain

Prenatal yoga offers some great benefits — it helps you to stay fit and flexible during pregnancy, and prepares you for that great marathon that we call labor and birth. There is another thing prenatal yoga can do, and that is to relieve various types of pregnancy-related aches and pains.

Back pain is a common problem among expectant mothers. It has many possible causes, the simplest of which is the weight gain associated with pregnancy, and the resulting changes in posture. Stress and hormones can also play a huge role in prenatal back pain. You may not be able to determine the exact reason why your back is hurting, but there are some steps that you can take to reduce your pain.

There is a good reason that prenatal yoga has such a wonderful reputation: it works. You can still benefit from prenatal yoga poses and exercises if you don't go to a prenatal yoga class. In this article, we'll share five videos SteadyHealth has made to help people just like you!

Read More: 9 Laws Of Safe Exercise During Pregnancy

The first exercise is a variety of the downward-facing dog pose, and while it is suitable for all three trimesters of pregnancy, it is especially likely to be helpful for women in their third and final trimester. This exercise is designed to strengthen your lower back and to realign your spine. It will also benefit your calves. Perform this exercise slowly, focusing on each movement as you make it. As always, pay careful attention to your body and stop if it hurts. This exercise can be repeated as many times as you like.

The next video is, strictly speaking, showing a pilates exercise. You'll need an exercise ball for this exercise, which aims to alleviate the lower-back pain that so many pregnant women struggle with. By doing this exercise, you will stretch your spine and release some of the pressure that will have been building up. You will be sitting on your knees and resting your arms on your exercise ball, which you will slowly push away from you, and then bring back.

At the culmination of the exercise, your back will be parallel with the floor. Pause to feel the stretch in your back — that's the good stuff you are looking for. At the end of a repetition, your back is going to be completely straight, and you'll be sitting up. Repeating this exercise at least ten times on most days will free you from a good portion of your lower back pain.

Back Pain Exercises For The Final Stretch Of Pregnancy

If you have purchased an excise ball (also known as a yoga ball, fitness ball, or pilates ball), you are going to want to get a good amount of use out of it. Here is another exercise that uses the ball, but this time you will place a towel underneath so it doesn't roll out of the way.

The overall range of motion is more limited in this particular exercise, and it works on alleviating lower-back pain in a different way. You lean forward, rest on your lower legs, and hug the exercise ball. Just make sure that you don't rest your baby bump on the ball, as you want to keep your weight off your uterus and baby. If you would see someone else performing this exercise, you may think they were using their arms. Avoid doing that — you lift your upper body using your lower back muscles.

This exercise will be great for women in their second- and third trimesters, but anyone can perform it to build a stronger lower back.

In the following exercise, you'll stand again the wall. Make sure your feet are a little more than shoulder-width apart so you keep your balance. Subtle upward and downward movements work on strengthening your lower back, and liberating pregnant women from pain and tension.

You will get the best results if you repeat this exercise frequently, and that is why you are advised to perform a minimum of ten repetitions during one session.

Our final back-pain exercise is one that is carried out in the hands-and-knees positions, preferably on an exercise mat. The back stretch is likely to be familiar to anyone who has practiced yoga before. Just make sure that you don't dip your lower back down as you would usually do once you have a visible baby bump, and especially during the third trimester — instead, look at the video closely and follow the virtual model's movements precisely.

The back stretch targets your whole back, and is soothing and relaxing to. Take deep breaths as you perform repetitions of the back stretch. The exercise has one other benefit that pregnant women in their third trimester should definitely know about: it is said to help position your fetus into a head-down or vertex position. This is the ideal position for labor and birth. Has your baby been breech recently? Regularly repeating the back stretch may not be enough to turn her, but you could certainly give it a go.