Practicing Pilates in pregnancy facilitates labor
Practicing Pilates during pregnancy is beneficial for the mother and the baby, as it helps to balance the changes that the female body experiences and prepares it for the moment of delivery. In Guiainfantil.com we tell you how Pilates can help to facilitate labor and how it is preferable to practice
Practicing Pilates during pregnancy is beneficial for the mother and the baby, as it helps to balance the changes that the female body experiences and prepares it for the moment of delivery.
In Guiainfantil.com we tell you how Pilates can help to facilitate labor and how it is preferable to practice it.
Why Pilates helps during the birth process
- Through machine Pilates, future moms adapt to the body changes that occur during pregnancy. Thus the pelvis is stimulated and a greater movement facilita is facilitated, both in anteversion and retroversion, key movements in the expulsive moment of the birth.- A key example of the benefits of Pilates is found in hospital delivery rooms. In most centers, at the time of delivery, the woman is offered to have a fitball in the dilatation room, an element that helps to manage pain and favors dilation. Fitball is an instrument commonly used in Pilates.
- Pilates facilitates labor thanks to maintaining the balance of the abdominal and pelvic floor: knowing the condition of the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles is essential to balance it at the muscular level, since alterations occur during pregnancy due to the baby's weight.
- Improves resistance in childbirth: by improving cardiovascular capacity, mothers are more prepared to assume delivery, since they develop greater resistance than if they did not practice any type of physical activity.
- It favors the correct positioning of the baby : naturally opens more space to the baby and improves the condition of adaptation of both, child and mother.Tips for practicing Pilates during pregnancy
- During the first trimester it is more advisableto perform low intensity routines
given that these are the most dangerous months for the baby's survival.
- Start Pilates classes after a period of sedentary lifestyle should be done progressively and with ample adaptation time given that the body will not be prepared to take so many changes at once.
- The most indicated type of Pilates is Pilates on the machine . In this discipline the exercises are performed in specialized machines where, although the method follows the same principles, the exercises are executed differently. The main reason is that in the pilates floor, 80% of the exercises are practiced face up, position in which pregnant women should avoid being for a long time by compression of the diaphragm, a very important muscle involved in breathing.
- The ideal number of sessions is 2 per week.- It is not advisable to practice exercise when there are situations of risk such as hypertension, previous premature births, bleeding or lung diseases among others.
Noelia Sánchez Physiotherapist and Pilates instructor
Zagros Sports
