Simple Pregnancy Exercises to Prepare the Body for Labour and Childbirth

Looking at Simple Pregnancy Exercises to Prepare the Body for Labour  and Childbirth is a topic vital for every woman who is pregnant or expecting to be. Even though there are some women who choose caesarian section, a good percentage of them still prefer the normal/vaginal delivery. Every woman can give an account on the benefits they gained or didn’t gain by exercising during pregnancy.

It important to to have exercises to help you prepare for childbirth. Women who have been active even before pregnancy will find it easy to continue with the same. The only thing they need to do is to reduce the intensity. Carry out easy exercises to prepare for labor and delivery. For someone who has been inactive starting a fitness routine after pregnancy can be a difficult. Health risk and complications after conceiving may hinder exercises regardless on one’s physical ability and fitness. Another thing to remember is seek doctor’s advice, eat healthy and avoid any form of drug or alcohol abuse. Understand why a pregnant woman should not drink alcohol

Below are Simple Pregnancy Exercises to Prepare the Body for Labour  and Childbirth

You need to carry out exercise for easier labor and delivery. Do pregnancy exercises to prepare for labour everyday. the early the better. staring an exercise at the last minutes before labour might be difficult and tiresome.

You may also like to Read on: Simple Exercises on How to Lose Weight While Breastfeeding

1. Tailor Sitting

Importance of tailor sitting to a pregnant woman

• Build up, strengthen and stretches muscles on your back, thighs, and pelvis
• Improves body posture
• Maintains flexible pelvic joints
• Improves the flow of blood especially the legs that tend to swell
• Prepare the body for childbirth

How to do tailor sit during pregnancy

• Ensure you have well-fitting clothes
• Sit on a mat or a clean and comfortable floor with your back straight
• Keeping your feet together and both knees stretched on each side gently lean frontward until you experience a moderate stretch in your hip and thigh muscles.
• The back must remain straight and avoid pushing down on your legs with your hands.
• Do around 10 repetitions depending on your ability.

2. Kegel exercises

Importance of Kegel exercises to a pregnant woman

• Tightens the pelvic muscles
• Reduces discomforts in the last pregnancy stages as the muscle will be more flexible and stronger.
• Prevents urine leakage
• Prevents hemorrhoids due to adequate exercise along the bladder and bowels

How to do tailor sit during pregnancy
To do kegel exercise one need to identify the correct muscles. To identify the correct muscles try to hold urine the minute you are sitting on the toilet without squeezing the buttocks abdominal or thigh muscles. Once you’re able to successfully hold and release the urine you will feel the vaginal muscle contract. At this moment you will be exercising the pelvic floor muscle, or in other words- doing Kegel exercises.
You can repeat this exercise fours time each round doing 10 repetitions.

3. Squatting

There are many debates about squatting during pregnancy. Some suggest it should not be done after second trimester as it may induce labour. In case one has any doubt about the importance of this exercise, a doctor’s advice could give a better understanding. Just like any other exercise during pregnancy it’s good to stop if there is pain, special health condition or a doctor’s advice. Since squats are demanding they should be done gently. In case there are no complications squats have the following benefits

Importance of squats to a pregnant woman

• Lower your back and pelvic pain
• Strengthens the leg during pregnancy
• Since it tiring it will improves your endurance, an important thing needed during child birth.
• Strengthen pelvic floor muscle
• Prepare for labour and birth.

How to do squats during pregnancy

• Stand straight with your back
• Keep your arms comfortable at your sides
• Keeping your back straight gently and smoothly slide down to a squatting position
• When your thighs are parallel to the ground, hold the position for 5-10 seconds
• Gently go back to a standing position.
• Repeat these procedures 5 or 10 times depending on your capability.

4. Pelvic tilt – Pregnancy exercises for normal delivery

Importance of Pelvic tilts to a pregnant woman

• Strengthen abdominal muscles,
• Assist in reducing backache during pregnancy and child birth
• Ease delivery.
• improve flexibility

How to do squats during pregnancy

• Kneel down and bend forward supporting the body with both hands.
• Ensure the back is straight and the head is line with the back
• Pull in your stomach and back to form an arc shape.
• Stay in this position for few seconds then relax to the starting position i.e. keep the head in line with the straight back.
• You can start with few repetitions then advance to around ten repetitions.

5. Walking
If you cannot be able to do any exercise then walking would be important. This will require no techniques. With a good pair of shoes and comfortable clothes you can stroll around the neighborhood or take a walk from the office. Walking for thirty minutes per day can be very beneficial.

See also: Importance of walking during pregnancy

There are simple pregnancy exercises that can improve and prepare the body for labour/child birth but one has to be very careful on how they exercise to avoid any injuries or pain. Below is a list of activities to avoid during pregnancy

• Exercise that may lead to falling for instance those leading to sliding, skiing etc.
• All exercise involving waist training should be done avoided at all cost
• Strenuous exercise that leads to body exhaustion
• Prolonged work outs
• Any exercise than requires jumping, strenuous pulling or pushing, bouncing
• Heavy weight lifting
• Any exercise that leads to prolonged breath holding

Every woman is special and being pregnant is not sickness. One can still enjoy day to day activities and still be vibrant as ever. Unless one is advised to have total bed rest it’s possible to at least include one of the Simple pregnancy exercises that can improve and prepare the body for labour/child birth.

You may also like to Read on: Simple Exercises on How to Lose Weight While Breastfeeding