Pregnancy Yoga Third Trimester

Welcome to Pregnancy and Postpartum PD. Today we are doing prenatal yoga especially for the third trimester. It's safe for all trimesters but it's really designed for when your belly is bigger. You may need a few more modifications. You may be moving a little bit more slowly. Also you may be dealing with things like rib pain if your baby is right up there in your ribs or back pain or sciatica. We're going to work through all those discomforts as well as do labor prep to prepare for your upcoming birth. You don't need any equipment for this class except for a comfortable floor or a mat to get down on. Also for some of the modifications I will use a chair in case you're having trouble getting into some of the poses in your third trimester. We're going to start sitting in a cross-legged easy position. It might be helpful to sit on a block or a pillow just to create more space for your baby in your front body. And so come to a comfortable seated position. You can close your eyes and we're going to start warming up our neck with some half neck circles and you can start bringing your shoulders into the hole. Just moving however feels good. And now we'll stretch one hand up and stretch over to the side opening up through the side body through the ribs. You want to create lots of space as baby tends to get up there right under the rib. If any movement feels good here you can take it and move over to the other side when you're ready. And coming back to the other side we'll do some big arm circles. So reaching in front and drawing a big circle with your arm opening up your shoulder and bring movement into your upper body if that feels good. And one more here and we'll move the other side. And last one on this side and from here we'll come onto our hands and knees. You can remove the block or the pillow and come up onto hands and knees and we'll do some cat and cow inhale arching your back and exhale stretching out through your back. We want to activate our core so we're not letting our belly hang out to protect our abdominal muscles. And one more stretch here and then we're going to imagine that we have a pencil hanging from our belly button and we're going to do hip circles moving that pencil in a circle and our circles get bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller and moving to the other side and smaller and coming back up to a neutral spine. Let's tuck our toes and you can push in to downward dog. If downward dog is hard for you you can also here grab your chair and fold over your chair to get a similar stretch without the pressure on your wrists and the upside down movement. Taking deep breaths let's come back down onto all fours. From here we can move in to a yogi squat so we're going to come on to our feet here and then move back into a yogi squat. If your heels don't quite come down you can put books or toilet paper rolls or roll up your mat underneath them. Alternatively if it's hard for you to get into this position you could sit on a stool or sit on a couple of blocks or a stack of books. You want to be able to sit up tall pressing your elbows into your knees. This is great for labor preparation. If you wanted to add some kegels here you can also do some kegels in and out. Taking one more breath here coming back to all fours activating your core and then lifting opposite arm and leg up and tucking it in and switching sides and the last one coming up to kneeling here. We'll move into some lunges so you can step one foot up and tap it forward shifting your weight tucking your tailbone under to get a nice stretch through your hip flexor or your psoas. You can place your hands on top of your knee and stretch here or if it feels good you can also release down and stretch on the ground. Good pressing in to your front foot coming back we'll switch to the other side pressing into your lunge. You can place your hands on the ground beside your foot and fold forward also if that feels good. Beautiful engaging your core and if you're down on the ground bringing your hands up and then pressing into your leg shifting your weight back and we'll come back to all fours tucking your toes and spreading your fingers and pressing into downward dog. Bending your knees and carefully walking your feet all the way forward to the outer edges of the front of your mat. Lots of space for your belly you can hang here and when you're ready slowly rolling up one vertebra at a time and inhale bringing your hands up and back to namaste. We're going to step back into warrior one so hips are facing towards the front of the mat back leg is straight you can bend your front leg and inhale up and breathe and we'll take one more breath here and on an inhale straighten your front leg and take your hands down to your front thigh and with a straight back we'll lean forward into pyramid. You might stay here or if you want to fold farther forward and walking your hands down to your lower leg or the ground you can do that and inhale using your core we're going to windmill up and shift our feet into warrior two your back foot is perpendicular from your front foot facing towards the front of the mat and on an exhale bending your front knee into warrior two your hips are facing the side of your mat now and we'll take our forearm and place it over our thigh and move into side angle and one more breath here and on an inhale using your core and coming up and we'll take a reverse warrior you can place one hand or lower hand on our belly and stretch back and bend your front knee and inhale straighten that knee again place turn both of your feet facing forward and inhale your arms out to the side and you can either clasp your hands behind your back or take your elbows inhale looking up and we'll do a wide leg forward fold all the way down and your arms can either be here or if they were clasped you can reach let them fall shifting your weight into the balls of your feet and if your hands are clasped bringing your arms back in towards your body inhale all the way up great job and now we will turn our toes out for goddess inhale up and cactus arms knees push back behind you not falling in great job a little bit lower if you can and inhale coming out and we'll turn around to the other side for warrior one inhale arms up and bending into warrior one on the other side deep breaths and one more breath here inhale up and coming forward for pyramid so placing your hands on your thigh and lengthen spine fold forward you can stop here or if you like a deeper stretch and that feels good to you you can move forward and inhale coming up and turning your back foot perpendicular and coming into warrior two and five breaths here and tipping forward again into a side angle soft gaze peeking underneath your top arm and using your core coming up for reverse warrior and lower hand on your belly stretch back and once you're there bending that front and inhale straightening that leg and now we'll make our way down into our seated postures so you can tuck one leg or get down however feels comfortable for you and come to a wide-legged seated position if it's more comfortable you can actually grab a pillow for underneath it's going to give a little bit more space for your baby and here we can just take whatever movement feels good so if you're having rib pain it may feel good to reach up and over moving side to side back and forth up and over or if you wanted to stay upright or walk your hands forward for a nice forward fold you can do that as well wherever you are taking some deep breaths good coming back up let's take our left leg in and move into Janu Sirsasana inhale up lots of length in the spine folding forward and then you can place your hands on your leg or you can reach your foot that feels good beautiful coming up we'll switch to the other side inhale arms up lengthen the spine tipping at your hips fold forward and then you can release your hands down to wherever is comfortable for you with each inhale sitting a little bit taller feeling like a string is pulling the top of your head and then exhale you can move towards folding forward a little bit more maybe even micro movement good inhale coming up we're going to move down on our side now so protecting your core getting down safely we're going to do some broken clamshells so often women will end up laboring in this position so it's really great to strengthen these muscles here in case you're laboring here you may also want to consider getting a peanut ball for labor to help you stay in this position but for now we're going to stay with our knees open and then we're going to tilt our knee up pointing up at the ceiling and down we'll do one more release down let's take a quad stretch while we're here you can grab your ankle and point your knee away in the opposite direction stretching out this should feel good releasing your ankle you can grab your knee do some hip circles if it feels good you can straighten your leg and reach it over top for a nice stretch doesn't matter how far it goes good if your leg is up we'll bring it down again we're going to move in it to a figure four stretch on our side which is great for sciatica so we're going to bring that top ankle in front of our knee and then with your bottom foot you can inch into a figure four stretch if this is challenging to get into on your side then you can also grab your chair and do the figure four stretch on your chair you can also place your hand on your knee and gently press your knee away for a little bit of a deeper stretch taking some breaths good let's make our way to the other side getting up safely we'll do our clamshells on the other side so we're going to do 12 i'll let you go in your own time last one good reaching for your ankle stretching through your quad deep breaths good now taking your knee for some hip circles and stretching your leg up you can either grab your leg or if you can reach you can also reach to your big toe and stretch that way or you could use a strap alternatively beautiful let's move into our figure four bringing that heel and ankle over top of our bottom leg and then walking our feet forward you can press down on your knee for a deeper stretch always being gentle finding your breath again good let's come to all fours so this is one of my favorite positions for birth it really opens up the hips in a great way and from here i'm going to practice making breathing or making sounds that may help us cope with pain throughout labor so some of the helpful sounds that you can make are the vowel sounds so i found it really helpful to listen to my breath but then also make a sound as you're going through a contraction or it could be or whatever vowel sound feels the most natural for you and helps you but as you're going through the contraction it can help you to focus on the sound and your breath and focus on relaxing your pelvic floor and just letting your body do the work and open up to let baby out so let's take one more ah inhale in ah good and if you're not comfortable using sound you can also just listen to your breath or whatever you feel is most helpful or kind of like puts you in that meditative state that will help relax you for your labor we're going to move in to shavasana from here getting down on your side you may want to grab a pillow or underneath your head or between your knees to get into the most comfortable position you can place your hand on your belly connect with your baby fully relax your body relaxing the muscles of your face and your jaw your belly the pelvic floor your hands and your feet feeling heavy on the ground you're in labor you want to try to get back to this place of relaxation and so you're letting your body do the work you can either stay here if you're relaxing or you can finish up with me stretching your fingers and toes in opposite directions wiggling them and pushing yourself up back to a seated position i'm going to pick the pregnancy yoga card for the day and it is i let go of others opinions and expectations about my birth and labor i know my body best and i get to decide what is best for me and my baby thank you so much for sharing your practice with me today namaste to you and namaste to the babies i hope you're feeling good now towards the end of your pregnancy i'd love to know how many weeks you are and how you're feeling about your upcoming birth i had three natural labors and positive birth stories and i think it's really helpful to sometimes share stories if you have a story that you want to share feel free to share it in the comments below or if there's something that you have a question for me about also feel free to ask that below i'm going to keep making pregnancy yoga and fitness videos every week so if you like videos like these please subscribe hit the notification bell give this video a thumbs up and share it with another pregnant mom friend or mom community that you think would enjoy it i also have lots of free resources for pregnant moms that i will link to in the description box below a complete guide on how to reduce and cope with pain during labor a kegel guide on how to prepare your pelvic floor for the fastest and easiest birth possible and the fastest recovery after a pregnancy meal plan that i put together as a registered dietitian or you can also just sign up to get notified every week when i put out a new video thank you so much for joining me again you are amazing i found really found that prenatal yoga really helped me and have helped me have three positive natural birth experiences and really when i surrounded myself with other moms who are doing prenatal yoga i heard so many positive birth experiences and so i know that you can do this i'm so excited for you to meet your baby and i hope to see you in the next 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