Postnatal Yoga focuses both on the needs of the new mother and of the developing infant.
For you as the mother, it is an excellent way to rebalance your body, improve posture, replenish your energies, recover vitality, nurture yourself, and soothe aches and pains. The postures can alleviate some common bodily stresses such as 'feeding hunch' and lower back pain... Breathing, relaxation and meditation can help you ride the emotional roller-coaster of mothering with equanimity and loving confidence.
Caring for a newborn can be a joyful and exciting experience of intense love but it can also be tainted by sadness and desperation aggravated by sleepless nights, painful colic, feeding problems, or postnatal depression. Yoga provides a very positive approach for the prevention and management of these emotions, enabling you to respond with ease and grace to the physical and emotional demands of mothering.
As far as babies are concerned, well… they are natural born yogis. They start life as open-hearted, flexible little creatures who live completely in the moment. Mothering a new baby demands that we too move into the now, the better to adapt to the changing needs of our little ones. The practice aids the new baby with their development through passive stretching and rhythmic movement sometimes accompanied by singing and sound effects to which babies respond with evident delight. Mums often report that their babies are calmer and sleep more soundly after yoga sessions. The practices often provide babies with relief from wind, constipation and colic.
At the end of the class peaceful relaxation comes quite easily and it encourages you to learn to let go with your baby, teaching you skills for relaxing and self-nurturing. It helps you find harmony and tranquility at a time in your life which is equally full of love and joy as it is demanding, tiring, stressful and emotional.
Also, you learn beneficial practices which you can then do at home. Yoga give mums and babies new wonderful ways to relate to each other and enjoy each other’s company!