Pelvic Floor Stretches for Prenatal Yoga

Video Transcript

"The next exercise is a nice preventative exercise. During labor you're going to want to have a little bit of control there so we're going to have Emily working on her kegel muscle there. Also hemorrhoids are a very bad problem in pregnancy so we're going to show an exercise that helps prevent them or even relieve them a little bit. So Emily I'm going to have you come to your knees. Let me take the blanket and give you a little more extra room. I want your knees a little more than hip width apart. Take your knees to the blanket, lower down to your elbows. Now you can have your elbows underneath the shoulders if it's comfortable or move them up just a couple of inches. Now measure off to make sure your arms aren't too far apart. Grab a hole of the arms just like this, then release the hand out into a tripod and entwine the fingers, perfect. Now just kind of relax your head down and be comfortable. Now what we are going to have her do is working with her breath and the first one we are going to have her do is the hemorrhoid prevention or relief and what we are going to have her to do is take a nice deep inhale, exhale out completely and we are going to get started. Inhale and tighten up the sphincter muscle and as you exhale slowly and gently release. Inhale tighten, exhale gently and slowly release. Another one inhale tighten and exhale gently releasing. Let your breath go to a normal flow. Now that should be done a couple of times a week if you are having problems or if you are not having problems. Now the next one is for the kegel muscle and during labor you want to have control, you don't want to have to rely on your breath and also you don't want to rely on medicines. So it's the same breath flow and as she inhales she is going to be tightening and as she exhales she is going to very slowly and gently release. So we are going to start with one cleansing breath first and then coming in to it. Inhale tighten the kegel muscle like you are going stop peeing and exhale very gently, release. Inhale tighten, exhale gently, release. One more. Deep breath in, slow, gentle exhale and lower down into Child when you are done."