Free yoga lessons to help prepare pregnant women for childbirth

Feb 1 2008 by Sally Williams, Western Mail

MOTHERS-TO-BE will be offered what are believed to be the first free maternity yoga sessions at a Welsh hospital from today.

The fitness regime has long been popular with celebrity mothers such as Geri Halliwell and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

But health experts hope yoga will now provide “therapeutic benefits” and advanced relaxation techniques to help a wide range of expectant mothers in Mid Wales.

Sara McAleese, a Machynlleth midwife, said, “Evidence shows yoga and other forms of gentle exercise will have health benefits for most people during pregnancy, as at any time of life.”

Organiser Teresa Walters said, “We’re offering yoga to those who wouldn’t normally try it, plus the chance to be active outdoors.

“We hope the sessions will help the women develop relaxation techniques and improve their experience of pregnancy.”

The six-week programme is being organised by community regeneration company ecodyfi. It forms part of the Mentro Allan Bro Ddyfi health research project.

Supporters of yoga – which originated in India and dates back more than 6,000 years – say its emphasis on relaxation and exercise is ideal for childbirth.

Yoga teacher Katy Tuxworth, from Yoga i Bawb (Yoga for Everyone), is specially trained to work with pregnant women.

“Yoga can be modified to suit different age groups, and differing physical and mental needs. There is increasing evidence that yoga has many therapeutic benefits which is making it more and more popular with the general public and medical practitioners alike.”

The midwifery staff at Bro Ddyfi Community Hospital, Machynlleth, expect the programme to be very popular.

A spokeswoman for the Royal College of Midwives last night said she believed the project to be the only one of its kind in Wales.

But using yoga in childbirth has already been popular with those willing to pay for lessons elsewhere in Wales.

Mother of two young children, Rachel Strangemore-Jones, 40, holds her own antenatal classes in Penarth, near Cardiff, to help women cope with their pregnancy and to help make birth easier.

She said, “Yoga has been around for a long time, but it is now becoming far more mainstream among mothers-to-be, who want to find out how opening their hips and learning how to use ‘the breath’ can make birth easier.”

Among those who have attended her antenatal yoga classes is Shelley Norton, operations manager at Cardiff’s Millennium Centre. After having had her first child Esme, aged three, induced, she said attending Rachel’s yoga class had helped her with the process of having her baby Clementine naturally at home.

“Although nothing can prepare you for the moment when you need to push, yoga helped to give me a mental focus for birth and to rise above the pain.”