Knowing how to prepare your body for pregnancy can be an overwhelming challenge. There is so much information out there and not all of it is helpful! But there are tried and tested methods that don’t require a large financial outlay and can be implemented without major changes to lifestyle. Thanks to research carried out by Harvard Medical School, USA, Yoga is now considered beneficial to help you prepare for pregnancy.
A threefold benefit
The studies were conducted by Dr. Alice Domar. Dr. Domar assigned infertile women to three groups. These were a control group; a group who participated in peer-support discussions; a group that received training in mind/body techniques such as yoga.
Dr. Domar demonstrated that women who practiced mind/body techniques succeeded in becoming pregnant at a rate almost three times greater than that of the control group.
The specific reasons for these positive results are unclear. However, it is thought that yoga can have beneficial effects on reproductive function by reducing stress, thereby balancing the neurohormonal profile. This seems to be true for both men and women, so partners trying for a baby can benefit from doing the yoga exercises together.
Reducing the stress of fertility concerns
One yoga expert said, “Trying to get pregnant can be a very fun but also stressful experience. If you’re trying for the very first time, you don’t know how fertile you and your partner are, so it’s often a guessing game as to the outcome. However, yoga has been proven to help couples in their quest to conceive with fertility yoga having a direct impact on the physical body.”
Going through fertility treatment and counselling can be stressful in itself. It is known that stress can affect the ability to conceive. When the adrenal glands pump stress hormones into the bloodstream, the uterus and ovaries are denied the blood flow they need to work at their best. So, it makes sense to try and mitigate this situation.
One way to do this is to elicit the relaxation response. Coined in the 1960s by Dr. Herbert Benson, a Harvard University Physiologist, the term is used to describe the lowering of metabolic rate. This is the rate that the body uses energy seen in people who are meditating. Dr. Benson found that encouraging people to meditate lowered their blood pressure.
Yoga brings on this relaxation response with a combination of breathing exercises and the meditative state induced by the yoga postures.
It’s all in the posture
Think of yoga postures and you probably conjure up images of bizarre contortions that look really uncomfortable! However, the simple and gentle postures adopted by beginners are a far cry from those practiced by yogic masters with years of highly disciplined training behind them!
In terms of fertility-friendly yoga, the postures used are specifically adapted to the female menstrual cycle in mind. Postures for the first half of the cycle help stimulate the ovaries to optimise ovulation, whereas postures for the second half of the cycle are focussed on increasing blood flow to the pelvic area and the uterus.
Other benefits
It’s clear that exercise has an overall beneficial effect on health. And yoga is a good way to get some gentle exercise while experiencing the relaxation response. Again, this effect is equally applicable to men as it is to women. Yoga can also be a social activity to boost self-esteem and allows women and partners to meet and socialise with other people who are undergoing the same fertility journey.
Further information
You can contact the British Yoga Council for information about accredited UK yoga practitioners.
In the USA the Yoga Alliance provides similar advice.
