Postnatal Yoga with Mellow Mummas Method

AD| Postnatal yoga is something that I have been considering doing for a while. There was a time when I was really into yoga a few years ago, like check out this post on my fitness blog – I did a yoga practice every day that week,. As I used to do it every day, I understand how great yoga can be for the body and mind. Since giving birth, I have had so many aches and pains in my back and I’ve been meaning to search for some online postnatal yoga classes for a while.

Enter The Mellow Mummas Method – right on time!

Mellow Mummas is run by Jenny Clark, who is a specialist in pregnancy and postpartum movement. She trained as a yoga teacher in 2011 and has been guiding yoga practices all over the world ever since. When she got pregnant, her interest turned towards prenatal and postpartum practice and Jenny retrained in this speciality. Even more exciting, she is expecting her second child this summer!

This means she is stepping away from her live classes for now, but what I’m here to talk about is the online prenatal and postnatal classes on-demand service.

Here’s the type of content you can expect:

• pregnancy yoga
• postnatal yoga
• guided relaxation
• breathwork
• pelvic floor exercises
• health & wellbeing talk
• ​birth prep e-books

Benefits of Pregnancy Yoga

Pregnancy yoga is a fantastic low impact way to strengthen and ease niggles as well as prepare the body and mind for labour and birth. It’s a great way to gently work and strengthen your core muscles, lower back and pelvic floor.

It builds strength and stamina in the body, also. You really need this for childbirth!

Through movement, breath and relaxation, pregnancy yoga allows you to reconnect with your body at a time it doesn’t feel like your own. It can ensure you maintain flexibility while helping you maintain a sense of calm. This can be particularly helpful if you are anxious about childbirth – which is a normal feeling. I was terrified of giving birth and had to block the idea out of my mind!

So yoga can really help quieten your mind and come to terms with things that make you feel scared or stressed.

Benefits for Postpartum Yoga

Postpartum yoga and exercise can be so helpful while getting through the newborn stage. If you have a baby, you will know how tough that fourth trimester can be! You are exhausted, tense and have no time for yourself. Your world revolves around your baby and it is both beautiful and suffocating at the same time.

Postpartum yoga can increase your mood and energy and help you slowly reconnect with your body – which is just what we new mums need. Pregnancy and childbirth are intense and we can often be left feeling depleted and like we are not ourselves.

After childbirth takes all your energy, it’s not a case of going home to get a good nights sleep. You have a whole baby to look after who doesn’t know the difference between night and day!

Practising yoga after childbirth has been shown to alleviate symptoms of postpartum depression, which can occur after the birth of your baby. It can. help pain and tension in your neck, back and shoulders as well as help to recover your pelvic floor and abdominal pain. As yoga is gentle, postpartum yoga will not hinder your recovery as a high impact exercise routine will.

It also pushes you to make that time to relax and focus on yourself. If you commit to a couple of sessions each week, it is your time to take care of yourself and let go of some strains while easing the aches and pains of postnatal life out of your body.

It can also give you a bit of confidence about your postpartum body Our bodies change so much and it’s hard to be happy with the changes all the time. I know everyone likes to go on about body positivity and loving yourself, but you can be unhappy with your body while still loving your body and appreciating what it’s just done.

Yoga can be a great way to feel like you are getting your body back. I don’t mean you need to lose the weight gained, I mean to get YOUR body feeling like it is YOURS again. For me, just starting that journey and doing the action is amazing for my mindset!

Postnatal yoga can really help you release stress and feel relax. Babies pick on your emotions, so by taking care of yourself you are also taking care of your baby and giving them the gift of a relaxed mum.

You should always check with your GP or midwife when it is appropriate to start doing a postnatal yoga session. Ideally, you should do this at your 6-week checkup vaginal births and a little longer for caesarean birth. There is NO rush, so if it tasks. longer than that to feel read, then that’s fine.

So, armed with my new yoga mat (from Amazon here!), I gave one of the postnatal yoga sessions a try.

Of course, Leo wanted to join in and be the centre of attention for some photos. He then sat next to me playing with his new toy bricks while I did my postnatal yoga session. It was quite cute actually, he was watching me a lot and I put my hand out at one point to stretch and he grabbed it and held it! That boy! He has stolen my whole heart!

Anyway, back to yoga. I picked one of the practices that focused on back and shoulders as I’ve had a lot of back issues since having Leo. I did have back problems before having him, I hurt my back at the gym six months before getting pregnant and that’s always been a niggle every since.

Then I had really bad tailbone pain that started halfway through my pregnancy. That’s not gone and I don’t think it ever will. When I sit down for long periods, it hurts. I also have pain in my upper back from carrying Leo around! I am going to book a chiropractor, but until then I wanted to try some gentle yoga to help me stretch and release some tension in my problem areas.

I needed a few bits of equipment for it, but it was things I could find around the house. I used my nursing pillow to sit on and a muslin cloth to hold and stretch out my shoulders. It was basically a ‘tell me you’re a mum without telling me you’re a mum’ moment!

It really showed me how I need to take more time to focus on my breathing. I really struggled to do the breathing correctly and co-ordinating my body to relax along with my breathing. This isn’t a surprise as my mind is always going a hundred times a minute and I really need to just learn to empty my mind and focus on one thing at a time.

The practice was simple. The moves had options for all abilities, allowing you to modify according to your level. It reminded me of how yoga is so much harder than it looks! Holding some of the poses for a while can get a bit difficult and tiring!

I’m going to commit to doing it twice a week. I don’t have lots of time and I also work out in my home gym, so that’s a realistic amount for me.

Jenny is giving my readers a free month so you can try some pregnancy and postnatal classes yourself.

Get your free month here with the code MELLOWMONTH.

Let me know what you think of the classes!

Check out my other mother and baby essentials posts:

• Hospital bag essentials 
• Third-trimester essentials
• Breastfeeding essentials
• Weaning essentials 
• Taking a baby swimming for the first time
• What maternity clothes do I really need?
• Newborn essential products for the first month