Of course, your practice with a prenatal yoga DVD promotes your own fitness, but it also contributes to your baby's healthy development.
Stretching and strengthening your muscles, learning to focus on and control individual muscle groups, and adjusting to your body's new center of gravity, you prepare your body for the ravages of childbirth. Far more importantly, however, as you develop your own cardio-vascular capacity, you assure your baby's development of a strong, healthy heart. Just like you, your baby thrives on big doses of "fresh air."
Manage your vital signs as you practice with a prenatal yoga DVD.
You have more in common with marathon runners and tri-athletes than you may realize. Just like them, you are developing stamina and endurance for your "big event." You are learning to conserve energy and stay hydrated through hours and hours of physical and psychological punishment. And you are learning to manage pain and keep driving toward your goal by controlling your focus and breathing. Like marathoners and tri-athletes, you may experience "runners' high" as you push yourself through practice with your prenatal yoga DVD. After thirty to forty minutes of disciplined, rhythmic exercise, your body releases a huge surge of endorphins-your body's own "feel good" chemicals. The more you can control your pulse, heartbeat, and respiration, the more you can stretch-out endorphin's benefits, sustaining what psychologists call "an alpha state," the body's own anesthesia. Yoga helps you master your vitals, teaching you to control your whole body by controlling your breathing.
Complement and supplement other cardio-vascular exercise with your prenatal yoga DVD.
Developing your own cardio-vascular capacity, slowing your own heartbeat and increasing your respiratory efficiency, you confer all the same benefits on your baby. When your heart gets healthy, hers does, too; when your lungs develop to their full potential, so do hers. Of course, your obstetrician recommends as much healthy "cardio" as you can handle-with the caution about "impact," of course. Most physicians advocate walking. Most veteran moms, however, recommend swimming or "aqua-fit." Both you and your baby naturally are buoyant, so that you can develop powerhouse heart and lungs while feeling blissfully weightless. Your practice with your prenatal yoga DVD and your swimming naturally complement one another, because both simultaneously build strength and flexibility, and both teach you to manage your breathing by coordinating it with your movement.
Sherry Holistan is a Yoga enthusiast. You will find a carefully selected list of the top rated and reviewed
Prenatal Yoga DVDs at
http://pregnancyyogadvd.net/
