Check out this topic for women who are pregnant, trying to get pregnant or who just had a baby or for any other issues related to sexuality for men or women.
So I never gave this much thought until now that I am in my 5th month of pregnancy. I've been practicing yin for a number of years and of course LOVE it, but wondered what your thoughts are on all the poses that compress the abdomen while rounding out the spine.
How can we effect the connective tissue of the low back without compressing the abdominal organs?
We are talking the laws of physics here ... at some point your lovely baby is going to swell your belly so much you just won't be able to fold forward very much at all. There are a few things you can try though, to avoid the completely compressed position.
Instead of doing the deep forward folds like Caterpillar and Snail, do the ones where the legs are abducted. With the legs apart there is more space for the baby to snuggle down lower...for example, Butterfly and Dragonfly (aka Straddle). As you get bigger, Butterfly may be the only confortable options. Remember it is okay to rest your upper body on a bolster. You could even try doing Butterfly while sitting on the floor with a kitchen chair in front of you, so that you can rest your head and arms on the seat of the chair, allowing you to relax in a shallow and gentle forward fold. Of course, this would work for Dragonfly (Straddle) as well.
The connective tissues along the spine and the lower back won't get as much juice from your forward folds as your pregnancy progresses. Again, this is just physics. However, you could try more side-bends and see how they feel for you. Sidebending could stress one side of the spine's connective tissues at a time. These would be poses like butterfly but folding to the side, and half butterfly with a slight rotation (as long as the belly does't feel compressed.)
As always, pregnancy is not the time to be trying to get to new depths in your yoga practice. All you want is some gentle stimulation now to those tissues to help work the meridian lines and help the tissues cope with all the other stresses that pregnancy brings.
Let us know what works for you over your last few months. Many others will be happy to hear about your journey.
There are a number of ways that we can stress our tissues, as discussed in this section of YinSights: we can stretch them (tension), twist them (shear) and compress them. Yes, for very pregnant women, shear and compression will be resisted by their growing bellies, but some massaging of the inner organs is not necessarily bad. Too much can be too much, but a little may be quite beneficial. Each woman will have to judge for herself.