What's the right way to do yoga while you're pregnant?
"Listen to your body; that’s number one. You don’t want to do any deep twisting when you’re pregnant — and there are a lot of deep twists in yoga, usually. But the basic idea is that you don't want to wring out your uterus." [Ed note: Now there's a disturbing visual].
Do you ever want to do something that would wring out your uterus?
"Yes! You want to wring out your center, it’s really great for eliminating toxins from your body. But you don’t want to eliminate things in your core when you’re pregnant, you want to keep them in there. So deep twisting is considered unsafe, and so is any kind of intense core work, really. I was starting from a place where my core was very in shape, so I actually stopped doing core work quite early in my pregnancy because I wanted my belly to relax to make sure I didn’t have any tearing of the muscles. Working your core properly can be great for learning how to push the baby at the end. Transverse abdominus, have you heard of that?"
Nope.
"It’s a seatbelt-like muscle that goes across underneath your belly button. It's also called the spare tire or a muffin top, which are some terrible words that we don’t call it. I like to call it the transverse abdominus muscle."
I like that. It's much more body positive.
"Yes, it’s very positive. So that is a muscle you can strengthen while you’re pregnant and that actually helps during delivery."
Your skin looks amazing. Tell us your secrets!
"When you get pregnant, you want to stay as moisturized as possible. Your body is going through so many changes and surprises can come up."
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Photo: Courtesy of Devries Global