BODY PRACTICES: Prenatal Yoga

by Jennifer Derryberry Mann

\Yoga has been my release, my workout, my inner and outer sanctuary for body and soul for the past five years. Forrest yoga (ForrestYoga.com), specifically, first hooked me: the intense, sweaty, core- and breath-focused practice is an elegant blend of physical therapy and psychotherapy, spirit hunting and awareness training, strength building and deepening flexibility. I’ve loved every moment as a student, as a teacher-trainee with Ana Forrest, and as a teacher. I’d occasionally take a class in a different style of yoga or sample a different body practice for curiosity’s sake. But I never anticipated needing or wanting any practice other than my beloved yoga.


Enter pregnancy. In 2006, expecting my first baby, I gradually began to adapt my personal practice to include prenatal poses and a burgeoning awareness of all things pregnancy-related. I didn’t really have a choice: Nowhere could I find a class called “Prenatal Forrest Yoga,” and I’m not great at keeping up a regular practice without the encouragement of a class. Along the way I got an unexpected reward: a rebirth in my overall yoga practice.

Sometimes I’d sweat in prenatal classes like I did in my Forrest sessions, but the better cleanse came from simply learning to let go of the expectations I had for my workouts. Forward folds, for instance, don’t happen in quite the same way when you’re carrying 30 or so extra pounds, basketball-style, between your breastbone and your pubic bone. My first prenatal experience was largely about learning to open — to open hips to make space for babe, to open my heart to the wonder of sharing movement and moments with other mothers-to-be, to open my mind to the many shapes and sizes of bellies, to open my ears to the sweet sounds of music when I’d typically practiced in silence. Phenomenal!

Fast forward a couple of years to this past summer, when prenatal yoga again brought new life to my favorite practice. This time, I experienced prenatal yoga as both teacher and student. At 39 weeks pregnant, for instance, I was delighted to ease my way into the restorative asana known as Pose of a Child. After years of being annoyed by the knees-out, head-down, supposedly relaxing position, I finally found my way to absolute rest. Chasing a toddler around while carrying her sister en utero was, apparently, just the perspective I needed to understand that I would have to embrace rest wherever, whenever, and however I could find it.

Prenatal yoga also meant adapting my poses with the help of yoga props — another former source of frustration. Props, after all, had just been obstacles to achieving the deepest expression of a pose. No more. This year, as baby and belly grew, I found the bliss in draping my ever-expanding self over a yummy pile of pillows, knees cushioned by a soft blanket, in a modified form of child’s pose. And in forward folds, I appreciated the extra little lift I got from placing my hands on a block, rather than flat on the floor.

Opening to Music

Where before I’d attuned my heart to the inner sounds of breath and blood, of emotion and spirit, I found that all the prenatal classes I attended included music. At first I resisted. Why the clamor, when baby was there to be heard? Slowly, I began to appreciate a certain song or two that lifted my heart when my belly was weighing me down. With both pregnancies, I ultimately happened upon a tune that became something of an anthem, able to change my mood with just a few bars of the opening melody.

With my firstborn, the song came during savasana, the final relaxation pose: The Dixie Chicks’ “Lullaby” became one I sang to my daughter once she joined us out in the open. In my second pregnancy, the song came during the lovely flow of sun salutations: Krishna Das’ “God Is Real/Hare Ram” waked a sleepy little part of my soul, in the sweet way that a baby’s cry wakes you in the night, once you’re secure in the knowledge that a little cuddling will bring more peaceful dreams to you both. Sometimes the mere memory of those songs, hours or even days after class had ended, was enough to deeply reconnect me with body and spirit.

With the support of props and the soothing sounds of music, I still appreciated a challenge in my prenatal practice. Linking breath, body, and mind in intentional movement was the one thing that consistently brought about the moments when I felt beautifully unburdened by the sensations of pregnancy. The weight of the belly, the tension of tendons, the occasional sting in my sacrum —all would mute if not vanish as I adapted my practice to my needs that day. At home, I’d struggle just to get up and down off the floor with my tot. But at yoga, I could propel my body upside-down into a handstand (with a little help from a wall, of course), or I could bind my arms around a thigh, foot lifted high to shoulder, while balancing on the other foot, standing in Bird of Paradise (or Mama Bird, as I loved to think of it) with relative ease.

My husband and I haven’t yet decided whether we’re willing to be outnumbered by our kiddos, so last summer’s  prenatal classes may have been my last. However, as life unfolds, I’m certain that the lesson of adaptability will continue to shape my practice. I’ll still find moments when extra physical support is the best thing for my body. I’ll have days where the flow of a sequence becomes much better when it has a soundtrack. And when I am at my best, I’ll find (I hope!) that I can adapt with relative ease to life’s constantly changing demands — especially in a world largely governed by my two toddling tots.

Jennifer Derryberry Mann is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and editor.