Let's face it, pregnancy, no matter how active you are, does a number on your core. Outside of general core weakness from the muscles being stretched out as baby grows, many folks also get some level of diastasis recti, a separation of the abdominal muscles that can contribute to additional weakness, pouching of the belly and bigger issues if left untreated. In the face of this it may feel like the best thing to do is to dive right into sit ups as soon as baby is born. Which is absolutely not the right answer. The best answer is doing core work, every day, in slow, incremental movements to help build core without doing any further damage. Here are four exercises you can do (once you've got clearance from your provider) to start rebuilding your core safely.

When we think about pregnancy we don't really think about having a core, we generally think about losing it, which is something that happens to a certain extent. But understanding what happens to you core during pregnancy can be very helpful in understanding how to avoid issues in the core during pregnancy (like diastasis recti) which can have an overall impact on the health of your core as your start to heal postpartum. Curious to find out what's happening?

Diastasis recti is something often talked about after pregnancy as we start to address the changes that have happened to the body during pregnancy and continue to happen postpartum. The thing is though, you can start addressing diastasis during your pregnancy and steps you take then can make a difference in the amount of abdominal separation that happen. First off, what is diastasis recti? 

The most significant muscle stretching in the core happens along the rectus abdominus and impacts the connective tissue called the linea alba. The rectus abdominus muscle consists of two sets of muscle bellies that run parallel and are held together by a connective tissue called the linea alba which runs from the sternum to the pubic bone. As baby grows and the uterus expands, the muscle bellies can separate and the linea alba stretches thin which is what creates diastasis recti.  

So, what to do?

So we've all heard the "don't lay on your back when you're pregnant" advice, but so often we're just told that, not really the why. The reason folks are advised not to lay on their backs during pregnancy is because when you are flat on your back there is the possibility of the uterus pressing on the inferior vena cava which is a vein that carries deoxygenated blood back to the heart. Prolonged pressure on this vein can cause issues for mama and potentially cause issues for the fetus. But what's the deal here really? Do we stop laying on our backs as soon as we conceive? Can we still do yoga poses on our backs?

I cannot tell you the endless posts I've seen on social media as of late by mamas and papas denouncing the actions of the government against immigrant families. As a parent it can feel heartbreaking and overwhelming and as a human being, parent or not, it can be devastating and hard to know what to do to help. 

I attended a community meeting this morning for information on asylum seeks and separated families. Make NO mistake that the current executive order is a stop gap, but does nothing for all the families currently being separate and does nothing to address the fact that asylum seekers are still being turned over to the DOJ to be processed criminally (SEEKING ASYLUM IS NOT A CRIME).

There is much to do, and much you can do whether its from the comfort of your home, computer and phone or going out into your community to take action. Here's a short list of things you can do to help, right now at this moment:

​The second trimester is when you may start seeing an increase in low back pain, particularly around the SI Joint. This is due to relaxin’s effect on the SI joint, causing it to loosen and become less stable as well as later in this trimester the postural shifts in the low back due to increased load of baby. 

But wait, what is my SI Joint? This is the joint between the sacrum (the heart shaped bone at the base of the spine) and the illium bones (the pelvic bones that come around and meet either side of the sacrum in the low back). This is considered a joint because it is held together my connective tissue (tendons and ligaments) and the sacrum can move slightly in relationship to the pelvic bones.

Okay, so maybe you've had the experience postpartum of having to reorganize your breasts in your bra before leaving the house? I can't tell you how many times I have looked down and found one nipple to be totally off-center in relationship to the other one. It was one of those days. And so I reach in to reorganize and as my fingers hit my nipple and I had a moment of thinking

​"Oh my god, what is that? Is that me? Is that my nipple?" In that moment, I physically did not know my own body. It was funny and also a bit unsettling.

Are you returning to your yoga practice postpartum? We recommend waiting till you get clearance from your care provider before returning to your regular fitness routine. And even after you get clearance you may find it takes some time to have that time, energy and drive to get back on your mat. Not to worry, start when you like and know that you have the support of short online postpartum yoga videos that can help support you get back into the swing of things and also do so with the small snippets of time your little one may be allowing you. Ready to go back to your regular yoga class? If you can, find a postpartum yoga class to attend in your area. If you can't, here are some tips for ways to modify your yoga practice to support your body.

Yoga is not something that requires fancy pants, or tops or a yoga mat really. Yoga is something you can do anywhere with very little. The great thing? There some wonderful yoga poses that you can do using the support of your wall. And guess what? Everyone's got one of those. You can do these with or without a yoga mat. Just make sure that if you're on a slippery surface you're in bare feet so you don't slide. Yoga at the wall during pregnancy can help give us that added support for balance that we most definitely need as baby gets bigger. It can also allow us to go deeper into poses we might not necessarily go into away from the wall. Whether you have a regular prenatal yoga practice and just want to change things up or are looking for some great poses to get your started for the first time in a prenatal yoga practice, these 5 poses are for you (p.s. do in them in order for a nice mini practice to start or end your day)!