|
 Yoga can have many benefits during pregnancy, including helping
women maintain flexibility and muscle tone and develop breathing
techniques that may be useful during labor. But late in pregnancy
women are often warned against poses that require them to lie on
their backs, such as "happy baby pose" or "corpse pose," and
inversions such as "downward facing dog" that might reduce
circulation to the fetus and contribute to a spike in fetal heart
rate.
To see how much caution might be warranted, researchers monitored
fetal heart rate while a group of 25 healthy women in the final
weeks of pregnancy tried 26 common yoga poses.
Fetal heart rate remained normal through all of the poses, and none
of the women reported decreased fetal movement, contractions, fluid
leakage or vaginal bleeding in the 24 hours after their yoga
sessions, researchers report in the journal Obstetrics and
Gynecology.
"Though this is a preliminary study, I found there were no adverse
changes in maternal or fetal wellbeing in the 26 studied poses,"
said lead author Rachael Polis, who conducted the research at Jersey
Shore University Medical Center and is currently with Kosair
Children's Hospital Gynecology Specialists in Louisville, Kentucky.
"Postures suspected to be contraindicated – e.g. downward facing
dog, child's pose, happy baby and corpse pose – were also well
tolerated," Polis added by email.
None of the women in the study had a history of hypertension or
other complications during pregnancy, and none of them had any
medical conditions that required them to avoid exercise.
The women were near the end of their third trimester, at about 35 to
37 weeks pregnant. Ten of the 25 participants did yoga regularly,
while eight were familiar with yoga and seven had never done it
before.
Each woman completed a one-on-one yoga session with a certified yoga
instructor, with an obstetrician and a medical resident in the room.
They had stress tests before going through the poses and again
afterward.
Given the size of their bellies, they didn't do any yoga poses lying
on their stomachs. They also avoided complete inverted poses such as
hand stands or head stands. To avoid falls or other injuries, they
could modify poses by using blocks, chairs or the wall for support.
Beyond the small size of the study, other limitations include yoga
sessions that might not match the duration or intensity of a typical
community yoga class, the authors concede. The women in the study
were typically of a normal healthy weight, too, while more than half
of pregnant women tend to be overweight or obese.
[to top of second column] |
It's also possible that women might encounter poses not covered by
this experiment that could cause problems during pregnancy, noted
Kathryn Curtis, a researcher at York University in Toronto who
wasn't involved in the study.
"I encourage pregnant women to seek out studios that offer
specialized prenatal yoga classes that are taught by teachers who
have prenatal yoga training," Curtis said by email.
"Women should practice hatha based, restorative practices with
breath awareness components, rather than heated or strength focused
practices, for safety precautions for both the mother and baby,"
Curtis added.
In a separate study reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics
and Gynecology, 52 pregnant women who had never tried yoga were
randomly assigned to either participate in a one-time, one-hour yoga
class, or to attend a one-time, one-hour PowerPoint presentation
about exercise, nutrition, and obesity in pregnancy.
In this study too, there was no significant change in fetal blood
flow immediately after the moms did yoga, according to Dr. Shilpa
Babbar of the University of Missouri Kansas City and colleagues.
"Yoga can be recommended for low risk women to begin during
pregnancy," Babbar's team concluded.
SOURCES: http://bit.ly/1k6TDbV Obstetrics and Gynecology, December
2015, and http://bit.ly/1miLC5a American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, online December 22, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
