Pregnancy should be a most natural experience. Your body comes with the programs, instincts and pre-calculated adjustments it needs to make in order to house the new happy and healthy life inside of you!

In the meantime though, modern mammas are spending considerable hours sitting, driving, stuck in the sad confinement of cubicles, and even when they do choose to move for health they end up doing countless hours on treadmills at the gym, or join classes that may or may not help their body. See, there is a natural physiological alignment that is best for pregnancy and your exercise program that is designed to make you fit, may not be making you fit for pregnancy!

Once pregnant, the influence of culture (seeing movies and TV shows, seeing and communicating with other pregnant women) can leave a momma taking postural positions and practicing postural habits that often lead to low back pain, foot pain and neck pain.

Pushing the ribcage forward over the pelvis is an all too common adaptation that many pregnant women have learned to make and is one that is easy to correct. Left uncorrected and unnoticed it can lead not only to pain but to permanent skeletal changes after pregnancy and an inability to optimally recruit the abdominal and low back muscles. Lack or core stability can then lead to many other movement dysfunctions in the extremities, and ultimately lead to pain and reduction in quality of life.

All I am trying to say is: ”Listen ladies, you may or may not be aware that while you are pregnant you are holding your upper body in a way that is not only providing less than optimal housing for your little princess growing inside, but is also putting you at risk for disease down the road. It’s easy to fix. Please watch this video!”

Thanks to Katy Bowman, my mentor and founder of the Restorative Exercise Institute for this fantastic video!

Be well, move well 🙂

Galina