Yoga for Morning Sickness

🤷🏾‍♀️🤢There is no definitive reason for morning sickness. Some get it others don’t, some get it during the first trimester, while a few have it all trimesters. Some have it a few mins a day some have it all day. It can come in waves being triggered by smells, motion or foods.

🩺Most experts in the field of reproduction blame hCG, a hormone, that helps prevent the body from expelling the fetus too soon in early pregnancy. The levels spike and taper off when the hormone hCG level decreases. For most, this is around the middle or end of the first trimester. For me, I personally only dealt with it mildly and for a short period. I did notice improvement with doing several of the things on the list below.

Notes of Caution⚠️

• If you have a history of miscarriage please consult your provider for guidance and refrain from yoga in the first trimester. Open Seated twists only during pregnancy To release tension in back, neck and shoulders. (bharadvajasana)

• Don’t do poses that don’t feel good, both physically and intuitively.

• Don’t practice in a room hotter than body temperature 98.6°

• Don’t do anything new, stick to what you know, even if you are a pro. Pregnancy yoga hits different. 💁🏾‍♀️

• Usual poses may need to be modified or eliminated and can be reintroduced depending how you feel each trimester.

🧘🏾‍♀️🙌🏾Most people just want to know how to cope, yoga is one way! Here are some suggestions:

• walking meditation

• standing poses - against wall if you feel dizzy to ground your energy

• Breathing practices

• pranayama - breathing for anxiety Alternate nostril breathing

• victorious breath - interval breathing I

• For most 5-10 mins of belly breathing is all that is needed to alleviate symptoms.

• Keep crackers by the bed, in purse, car, everywhere lol. Have a cracker or 2 before getting up.

• Don’t drink too much in the morning to prevent from feeling full too fast.

• Sip warm water - optional to add fresh lemon, piece of ginger, maple syrup or honey.

• Eat simple food: try apples, grapes, pears, bananas, cheese and crackers, almonds.

• Take prenatal vitamins before bed not in the morning. Try a different brand if the one you take makes you feel sick.

• Acupressure band on wrist

• Peppermint, lemon and lavender aromatherapy

• Acupuncture and chiropractic can definitely change the game. Try: rootandsoul.com & radiantfamilychiropractic.com

As I struggle with PMS, PMDD, anxiety. I practice yoga at my most vulnerable times due to my surge in hormones that make me feel not so myself. Yoga at least offers me a way to soften the intensity of these challenges.

Practicing yoga gives us discipline—tapas to stand up for ourselves and our babies. This is particularly important for Black mothers, due to the Black maternal health crisis, in which we are 3-4x more likely to die of childbirth and pregnancy related complications due to institutional racism whether implicit or not.

Yoga helps us show up when we are too anxious to leave the house or do anything at all. It gives us self awareness to filter the noise.

Yoga also helps us shed attachments to ideas, peoples or situations that do not support us. You can’t make your pregnancy or childbirth outcome happen a certain way but you can create the conditions that give you and your baby the best chance of having the experience that you envision. Yoga helps you patience to allow things to unfold as they will. If you are spiritual, it’s your God’s will.

Embrace what works for you and let go of what doesn’t. How long to do yoga? Until you feel better! I try to repeat each pose 3-5x per side.

Pregnancy can be a powerful time to find or cultivate trust. We have to trust our bodies and our baby, yoga helps us honor our feelings and our own experiences so that we surrender the need for control and trust the body’s ability to create life and give birth.

The flow you see here involves:

• easy seated poses with arm movements sukhasna

• thunderbolt Sun Salutation

• mountain pose tadasana

• tree pose vrksasana

• half moon pose Radha chandrasana

• child’s pose supported balasana

• Reclining hero pose Supta virasana

• savansana corpse pose with block for belly breathing