Live captioner standing by. 
Yeah, yeah.  I love that.  Pincha Mayermayur patchmaten patchymaten patchypaschimottan patchy  >> Hello, everyone.  I'm going to give a couple of minutes for everyone to trickle in.  And then we will dive on in.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful day or afternoon or wherever you are in the world. 
 All righty, right at 9:02 I will go ahead and start.  It looks like the numbers are trickling in.  Again, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.  We are so excited to be here with you today.  Here is some Q&A. 
Hello!  Hello!  From those in the chat.  Wonderful.  Some folks from Nepal.  Beautiful.  All righty. 
So hello and welcome.  I want to introduce myself.  My name is Mary Ma.  My pronouns are she/her, I'm a community learning and education special esthere at Yoga Alliance.  I will be the host for today's webinar which is adapting yoga for pregnancy, creating an uplifting and supporting environment for our pregnant students.  Something all of us yoga teachers I'm sure can relate to and can definitely grow from.  So so excited to have Lily here with us. 
Before we get started you will see there is a poll pop-up on your screen.  We are curious where you are joining from today.  I see some people are from Nepal.  So if you want to pop in and let us nowhere you are coming in from.  We would love to know where you are and I will give a couple of moments for you to do that.  I'm currently in Berkeley, California.  This is my home town.  If anyone has been to Berkeley, wonderful space.  Cal, all of the good stuff.  So happy to be here. 
So while you are answering the poll, it's my pleasure to introduce Lily Dwyer Begg.  She is practiced for over two decades, taught yoga full time since 2006 and led prenatal yoga teacher training since 2013.  The creator and director of home yoga on line, prenatal yoga teacher teaching training and leads in the U.S. and on-line and in Japan.  Lily has taught in yoga studios internationally, work withed NBA basketball team and NCAA diving team.  And works therapeutically with private clients all around the globe.  Today we will dive deep into the skills that yoga professionals need to effectively support and empower our pregnant students in regular adult yoga classes.  Please note that this workshop is designed to educate instructors on basic teaching methodologies to support pregnant students, attending non-pregnancy specific yoga classes.  We will discuss scope of practice and knowing when taking a specialty training is necessary in order to teach specialty specific classes. 
We ask that all of our viewers adhere to the Yoga Alliance scope of practice which will be shared in the chat shortly.  And then today's workshop is also eligible for CE credits so you can get CE credits for techniques training and practice.  Instructing for logging in those CE credits will be shared in the chat shortly.  We will close the poll now so if you haven't answered where you are in the world, go ahead and get that response in and just have a big ol' welcome to everyone.  Obviously we aren't in physical space or else I would say turn to your neighbor and say hello, but you can still give that beautiful energy here virtually. 
Last thing is this is going to be a really robust presentation.  We have left some time for question and answer but there is a chance we might not get to it.  So if we can't have that time, you can ask us your questions in the Q&A.  We will take all of those questions and then Lily will be responding to them later after the webinar via e-mail. 
So alright, with all of that, I know that's a lot.  I'm going to pass the mic to Lily and we will dive on in.  Thank you, everyone. 
 >> Thank you, Mary and thank you Yoga Alliance for welcoming me to this platform to share a little bit about adapting your yoga classes to support pregnant students.  Thank you all yoga teachers and Yoga Alliance members for being here for welcoming me into your space wherever you are today and whether you are catching this live presentation or catching the recording.  I'm so happy there is a spark of interest in learning how to include and empower and support pregnant students that are taking your non-prenatal yoga classes.  Or perhaps you might yourself even be pregnant and be an enthusiastic practioner and wanting to have more direction around how to adapt and support yourself.  So thank you all for being here. 
If you teach yoga, if it hasn't already happened yet, undoubtedly at some point in time you are going to have a student who is pregnant come into your non-prenatal yoga class and I find that some teachers feel a little uncertain or anxious when this happens.  The way that I want to structure our time together is first with talking about the why.  So what I mean by that is first addressing the different phases of pregnancy.  We will move briefly through common pregnancy discomforts that can arise that your students might commonly experience in their bodies and you will develop from this part of the presentation a little bit of space to think on your toes.  A lot of you may have been teaching yoga awhile.  And have compassion for what these students are going through. 
I want to start here first and for the bulk of our time.  Then towards the latter half, like couldn'ta indicated poses that -- contraindicated poses that might be indicated and what you can do in these situations, some workarounds for the pregnant bodies.  We will start with the why.  I find this makes teachers feel empowered and confident themselves so they aren't just memorizing a formula.  They are understanding the reasons behind why they are making certain modifications. 
Lastly, we will talk about the strategy for keeping your class going because it's not a pre-natal yoga class and at the same time holding space for your pregnant students.  That's the plan. 
I would like to begin by bringing our energy together.  And this is something that I do when I start my prenatal yoga teacher training as well.  I will actually share my screen and share with you all this teacher student prayer.  It is a peace indication.  And I think as teachers we are -- it's not hierarchical.  We are not just in the seat of the teacher but actually our students are sometimes our greatest teachers and so for you all when you have a pregnant student come into your yoga class, talk to them.  Get to know them, ask them questions.  How are you feeling today?  How is your body?  What do you need physically or energetically from your practice today?  How did that feel after class.  Talk to your students and you will learn so much.  Your students can be great teachers. 
I share this chant in the spirit that we are all learning from one another.  And another thing I love about this chant is that it acknowledges that sometimes on the path of growth and learning and self-discovery, there is a little friction.  This is inevitable and it acknowledges it.  And it says may we be nourished together to seat of the heart that is true.  May we work with great energy and be fruitful.  May we never quarrel with each other.  May our work together be harmonious.  It's a peace indication. 
So although Zoom doesn't have the best audio for call and response chanting and you can keep your mics muted, I will both do call and response and you can follow in with me if you would like for the response.  So find a tall seat.  Close your eyes.  Root down and get effort-y through your sitting bones and pelvis.  And then feel your spine sprouting up out of the bowl of the pelvis, bouyant heart.  A deep breath in.  And out.  Call and response.. 
[Chant response] 
 Bow your head to your heart, humble your head to your heart. Pause here and take a deep breath in through your nose.  And sigh out of your mouth.  And take just a brief moment longer here bowing in perhaps even setting an intent for our time together.  When you are ready you can release your hands and lift your head and go ahead and open up your eyes. 
My goodness, there is 327 of you here.  I see the little hearts floating.  Thank you all so much. 
So I want to begin the presentation.  I have slides for you all and these slides will be shared with you afterwards so don't worry about fervently taking notes.  Though I do recommend taking notes if that helps you to learn.  I will start with some questions.  This will make you more of a stakeholder.  Instead of just starting with the flood of information, I want to help us see how this content might be relevant in your path as a teacher. 
The first question is have you ever had a pregnant student show up to take your class?  I don't know if you can raise your hand in a webinar.  I know when I teach my trainings, folks can.  You can drop it in the Q&A or just sit with this question if you aren't sure with the technology.  I'm not either.  It's okay.  But sit with this question.  Have you?  Yeah?  Oh, thumbs up, yes, you have.  I see the floating thumbs up and hearts.  Yeah, yeah. 
So the next question is:  What moments in your sequence were you unsure about modifying for your pregnant student?  That could be poses like belly down back bend.  With a big belly.  That could be transitions like, hm, how is this student going to step from three legged downward dog to high lung with the big bump.  Or pranayama.  Or enact vitting, holding the breath.  I'm interested in your responses to this.  In fact, I'm actually going to use your responses as a little bit of research for myself and though I won't have time to answer all of them today in this one hour webinar, what I would love is if you could put it in the Q&A -- there is on the bottom bar, a Q&A.  I will get a copy of that and I will be using a lot of your questions or moments from this question as material for my Instagram.  In the next couple of months you might see me answer your question about a moment in your class and in your sequence or if you are not teaching yet in a sequence you practiced recently that you are not sure what you would do for pregnant student at that moment.  So drop it in the Q&A. 
I'm going to keep going with the slides but keep chatting and typing and asking.  I really want to get back to you about that. 
These are ways you can find me.  So you can also see my IG handle is there, you can grab that and add me and you can DM me your question and that's another way to get it to me. 
I did a presentation last year for Yoga Alliance on adapting yoga for postpartum and I still have relationships with some of the yoga teachers and colleagues that I met when I led that webinar.  I really like let's keep in touch.  Here is my e-mail.  Here is my website.  Find me for a class.  Shoot me for an e-mail if you are teaching a class and things cop up around pre- and post natal.  Let's stay connected. 
I also lead on-line, 100% on-line Yoga Alliance registered prenatal yoga teacher training.  This is about adopting a non-prenatal class for pregnant students.  If you want to dive into this most wholeheartedly this starts October 7 and you all get a coupon code if you use the word bolster, like the yoga prop for support, yeah, bolster, you get $100 off my teacher training that starts in October.  You can even combine it with the early bird.  So that's 200 plus 100 and you get a third off the early bird is through September 4 but you can use bolster all the way up until the start of this teacher training. 
In addition, I have two full scholarships, 100% scholarships.  There is an application here.  We will share that in the chat for BIPOC students.  Check that out if that applies for you. 
Today we will cover to begin some benefits of prenatal yoga and look at bodily changes and just understand what these students might be feeling.  And then we will look at kant indications -- couldn't indications, contra-indications. 
So I want to begin by sharing that the research has shifted a lot around recommendations for exercise during pregnancy, even in the past decade.  So there used to be an idea that we should be very cautious when pregnant and avoid exercise.  It was discouraged.  Then this was debunked. 
Then it was said, exercise if you used to exercise before you got pregnant.  And then this was debunked.  The link in this slide that you will have access to and I share the slides with you all is from the American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists.  And what we found in the past decade is that everyone unless you are a high risk pregnant person should exercise at least five 30 minute moderate exercise moments in your week.  So that could be yoga, walking, swimming.  It helps your outcome during pregnancy and helps your birth outcome.  And it actually also supports the health of your baby.  So this just to say that this idea of exercise during pregnancy has shifted and is still shifting even in the past decade a lot has been proven around the benefit of exercising during yoga. 
A lot of pregnant people will come to yoga.  So I mentioned before if they ask their care provider what kind of exercise should I do, it's usually walking, swimming and yoga.  You might see students wander into a yoga class and never done yoga before and they have a 25 week bump.  And so knowing a little bit, just a little bit, how to include and support this person can go a long way. 
Here are some benefits of practicing yoga during pregnancy.  Yoga can help to strengthen the deep core, the pelvic floor, the transverse be adominous, the movement of the diaphragm and all of this helps with the pushing phase of labor.  It also helps to reduce lower back pain and postural pain from having, you know, weaker core muscles. 
Yoga can strengthen and stabilize muscle around the pelvis.  The pregnancy, it's -- not just during pregnancy but thought of a pregnancy hormone, relaxen creates a softening and elasticity in the connective tissue and joint space all throughout the body.  A lot of pregnant folks will feel this around the pelvis.  Strengthening the inner thighs or the glutes, the muscles around the pelvis can help with these aches and pains. 
Lowers the risk of gestationle diabetes and excessive weight gain and proven to reduce C-section risk by 55%.  And I will share that World Health Organization advocates that a nation's C-section rate should be 15, 1-5.  U.S. is more like 33.  So we can do a lot to support this reduction in unnecessary -- of course, often a C-section is a life saving and necessary surgery.  But for unnecessary cesarean section. 
Practicing yoga can increase bloodfully to the pregnant person and the baby.  Help with mood.  Help with stamina as you prepare for birth.  This FTP if you see in the bullet points refers to fear, tension, pain.  And this is very interesting for us Yogis.  It's a cycle.  When we feel fear mentally it creates tension physically and when we have tension physically we actually experience more pain than we otherwise would.  So mindfulness and relaxation techniques can help us feel less tension, less fear and thus less pain.  In labor even. 
Another benefit of prenatal yoga is it helps to create community.  Or even a non-class.  It takes a village and that social wellness is a pillar of your health, not just your own physical fitness and nutrition, but that sort of connection is really important to our well being when pregnant. 
Pregnancy, yoga during pregnancy can support the optimal fetal position by creating balance in the hip flexors and proper alignment through the pelvis and our spine. 
You will notice throughout this presentation that I try my best to use gender neutral pronouns.  This is not my writing and I love this writing so I'm sharing this here.  It's from the bluejay's dance and speaks to this idea that we are preparing for a marathon when we are preparing to give birth.  It's not a time to necessarily, like, not go to yoga.  In fact, we need yoga even more.  Pregnancy and yoga are a match made in heaven. 
Your high risk students exist for sure.  But they won't be going to prenatal yoga or Vinyasa yoga, hatha yoga, whatever you are teaching if a student is on bed rest or has been told they are high risk, they won't typically go to a yoga class.  So don't be scared of your pregnant students or think they are fragile.  They are preparing for a peak physical event in life. 
Now let's get into a little bit of the anatomy and physiology of pregnancy.  Want to back it up.  Zoom out and before we dive into the trimesters, frame this conversation by saying that before one even sees a positive pregnancy test, in areaveda the three months prior to airveda.  It can be part of your well being during pregnancy.  So in this picture, you see that there is four phases of the menstrual cycle.  And there is the new moon for menstrual and then the full moon for ofltory and then -- ovletory and then the growing and the waning moon. 
If you yourself has a menstrual cycle, if you are not menopausal, or if you are not on a hormonal birth control pill that might alter some of these signals that your body receives, you as a yoga practioner might be tuned into your body to notice that your physical body feels different in these four different phases.  That your emotional and spiritual energy feels different during these phases.  And of course there is poses that we can. Do I'm not going to get into granular detail in this context today, but I do in the prenatal teacher training.  There is poses we can do to help with PMS.  There are poses we can do to help the follicular phase for like folks over age 35 trying to get pregnant to boost the end krn and the thyroid gland to support the gluteal phase.  There is ways we can balance the energy through ofltory so we don't burnout with our yoga practice. 
What I will say today without getting into too much detail is just those of us who have a menstrual cycle can start to connect to that cyclical nature of our bodies and start to understand when we attune that perhaps not just doing the same set sequence every single day, no matter how we are feeling physically or energetically, but kind of working with and in harmony with these different phase is.  Sometimes going against the grain can create harmony.  Sometimes softening and just going with what is concrete harmony.  And listening to your body.  That's all I will say about the menstrual cycle. 
The first trimester is weeks one through 13.  Now week one is before the egg is fertilized.  Weeks one is day one of your menstrual cycle.  Weeks one through 13.  By week 13 baby is the size of a sweet pea and for us yoga teachers what's relevant is that this is the most vulnerable fragile stage.  I don't mean if you teach someone to, I don't know, do bridge pose or something it's vulnerable and you will cause a miscarriage.  I don't mean that at all.  I don't want to scare anyone.  What I mean is that about 20 to 25% of pregnancies result in a miscarriage.  It's way more common than you think.  And 80% of miscarriages occur in the first trimester.  That's what I mean.  Usually for chromosomal reasons and not because you did something weird in a yoga class. 
But because of this you may have students who are pregnant and are in the first trimester and not comfortable sharing that publicly.  So if you ask for a raise of hands at the beginning of class they are probably not going to raise their hand if they don't know you that well or a bunch of strangers in the class and they aren't ready to publicly announce. 
For this reason it's helpful to verbally cue some adaptation you might give to pregnant students.  We are going to do some situps and crunches or boat pose or wheel pose deep back bending.  If you're pregnant you might try this modification instead or verbally cued.  If even no one shared.  There is a lot of hormone changes and nausea fatigue and digestive issues at this phase.  Frequent runs to the bathroom to maybe for nausea but also the bladder.  Fluids in the body cause the bladder frequent urge to urinate and it's not because the baby is pressing down on the bladder.  It's the hormones and the fluids. 
I do not recommend hot yoga during pregnancy.  Neither does your doctor or your midwife or your aired havic practioner.  None of us do.  But especially in the first trimester.  When all of the organ systems of baby are being created.  I do not recommend hot yoga.  Yeah, I will just say that. 
Practice considerations.  I will go back to that actually.  You know when you have a fever, like, if you have a fever in the first trimester you are supposed to bring it down, maybe take a Tylenol.  If you are in the first trimester or any trimester, the care provider will say don't go in a hot tub or a sauna.  You want to take care of the environment and your body temperature and regulate that. 
So practice considerations, what's relevant to us as yoga teachers about this first trimester?  As the bump gets bigger, the feet will get wider so in the first trimester the feet are two fists width.  You can measure two fists between your big toe joints and the arches.  That's a little wider of a stance for sun salutations or folds even before your yiewts are rises or their yiewts are rises.  Your yiewts are is a pelvic organ.  It's below your pubic bone and then after the first trimester it rises above the pubic bone.  It becomes an abdominal organ.  First trimester is implantation phase.  I do not recommend jumping.  If you jump your transition to get to chat rnga or Jung out to do a wider standing fold, start taking softer steps 
If there is a lot of nossia, keep the head and heart in line.  One of the first symptoms of pregnancy is the chest tenderness as the breasts increase in size.  So jendzle heart opening can feel amazing.  It can be an internal time and maybe not all of your students will make it to yoga in the first trimester. 
The second trimester is weeks 14 to 27.  By week 27 the baby is the size of the head of a cauliflower.  This is typically the honeymoon phase.  Some folks have hyperiumsis.  This is like .5 to 2% of folks and they feel nauseous the whole time.  I mean, it sounds bad to us but I had students like this in class and it really is demoralizing to have this kind of severe nausea.  It really is like your every day existence.  It's not just morning sickness.  Have so much compassion for the students that don't end up getting their wind in their wings at the second trimester.  And not everyone does.  Most will. 
So at this phase it's fun because you are feeling better.  You are feeling little butterfly kicks and movement of baby.  You are getting the glow.  Your blood volume is increasing by up to 40% by the end -- up to 50% by the end of the third trimester.  That's a big increase. 
In yoga this is a great time for your students to build strength and stamina because it will help them to feel better when they get big in the third trimester.  So like standing poses, glutes, legs, shoulders, arms for holding that baby when baby comes out.  This is a great time to build strength. 
I would recommend to stop practicing flank pose and upward dog around 20 weeks.  It might not feel great if there is a round ligament pain but to avoid further progression of a diiestitous -- which is a thinning and -- the six pack muscles away from the connective tissues. 
As always, and I will get on my mat to show this one.  As always, in yoga we -- when we fold, not always, sometimes there are creative flows where we round undulate.  Who knows, I love that stuff.  But when you have a belly, it's nice to really encourage maybe students to bend the knees to encourage lengthening forward.  You might see this in your students that like end up in the forward flow here.  You know?  Here.  And kind of tucked under.  Not quite finding the hip, they are folding from their lumber spine.  That's not ideal for yoga alignment.  Forward fold when you aren't pregnant.  When you are pregnant it's not ideal not only for the lumber vertebra and nerves but also because you're creating a compression around baby.  If the student bent their knees and added the action, the action of an anterior tilt to the pelvis, then they would have space to be soft through their abdomen.  And when they come out of that fold as well to think of lengthening and reaching forward.  There is space around the abdomen as the student rises up with their belly.  You can cue this for all of your students but you can see how with the pregnant belly that compression and tightening and hardening around the bump would not feel great.  You want to make space for baby. 
You can also transition your lunging poses, stepping down from downward dog and like to move and think through the things by stepping wide.  So what I mean by that, I will show. 
And you can do this with blocks under your hands, too.  That gives you more space to step through.  Is that instead of maybe in a Vinyasa class, step through by hugging into the middle, where is the room for the bump here.  Yeah.  And then bringing the foot through and then coming up and do whatever lunging or warrior pose you are doing.  In the prenatal pose, that -- not in a pregnant body, that's not going to work.  You make way for baby in all of these transitions.  What you can do is step your food to the outside of your hand and you might need to do that in several pieces.  Step grab.  And kind of lunge it forward. 
Then come into, right, whatever pose you were going to cue, but sharing these strategies to shift from a three legged dog forward is really helpful with the big growth spurts of the second trimester. 
I'm so excited.  I see 54 Q&A.  I can't wait to see your questions.  Okay. 
The third trimester is weeks 28 to 40 plus.  And the reason I say 40 plus is that I think there is a mentality that like we circle the due date in red on a calendar and that's when baby is coming.  But to practice non-attachment to that one date that we can get laser focused on and crushed if we go three days or a week or two weeks over, just to remind ourselves that a normal healthy non-high risk, non-advanced maternal age pregnancy could go anywhere between 38 and 42 weeks.  Let's reframe it and call it a Dumont instead of a due date and just feel how this takes the presh off of people that -- pressure off of people that all variations of normal due date are awesome.  If you have friend who is pregnant now, don't e-mail them every day.  Did you have the baby yet?  The pressure this puts on people. 
And your bursting.  You have a physical pressure at that point.  That's part of the compassion, too, is like, yeah, you are 41 weeks.  Great, the average first time parent goes ten days post due date.  It's totally normal. 
Third trimester.  The hips and the pubic bone are changing shape this can contribute to pelvic pain or instability.  Maybe some people swelting in the hands and feet.  Bracksen hicks are painful tightening.  With the first time parent the baby drops at 38 weeks and if you have babies, second or third it might be a little later this creates more room to eat and breathe.  But more pressure on the lower back and the pelvic floor and more waddling. 
For our yoga students, feet as wide as you need.  I have a really short torso and really long legs.  So with my two pregnancies I carried straight out and I actually had to step my feet wider than my yoga mat when I did a standard forward fold at 40 weeks, I was here.  My feet -- I don't know if you can see I was this wide.  Yeah? 
Then I could fold and had a lot of space.  You might have a student who has a long waste and shorter legs that's pro-- waist and shorter legs that's proportioned, and that student doesn't need to step the feet as far apart that student might get comments from friends, well meaning friends oh, your baby is so small are you eating enough?  And I refer to it as a convertible in a stretch limousine.  It's like if you have a really long waist, your bump is going to look smaller because you have more room to carry.  It's a stretch limousine. 
If you have a short torso, you will be all out in front.  And people might say, are you eating a ton of ice cream?  Do you have a big baby.  Are you worried about giving birth.  It's none of their business to comment on someone's body.  We carry differently based on the shape of our bodies. 
So all of the props just encourage these students to grab extra props like four, six blocks, the bolster, the blankets can go under the side ways in shas have aena.  I'm standing on a yoga birth ball or grab them and the chairs.  Standing poses, squats.  That downward flow of energy.  The energy of birth, means strings, sweat, elimination.  We want to key into the sensation of grounding and moving energy down.  Malasana.  It's with -- if you have a breach baby.  It drops baby down into the pelvic bone. 
If you have acid reflux, head and heart in line.  Cat-cow can help the fetal position.  Pelvic floor heaviness or also breach babies you can do longer inversions that brief inversions can help take some of the weight of baby off the pelvic floor. 
This shows the growth so by the fifth month, 20 weeks, the fundus, the top of the uterus is at belly button height.  And then it keeps growing up and up under the breasts and then drops before you give birth. 
This shows just massive impact that baby has on all of the organ systems.  You can see the stomach, all of the digestive organs are compressed and moved.  The diaphragm is pressed upwards.  The bladder is not much room left.  And sometimes preggant students will complain to you that they feel like they are not getting anything done or they feel lazy.  So when we look at this picture I always think, just by breathing, just by walking, just by doing the simplest things you are doing something amazing in your body.  It's magical.  There is so much work that your body is doing all of the time and your body is being so generous to make space for this baby. 
So if a student can't do your entire intense Vinyasa flow to remind them what an amazing, what an amazing thing reare doing by breathing and showing up, by being in child's pose.  It's all amazing. 
I love this quote from the famous American midwife, she says there is no other organ quite like the uterus, if men had such an organ they would brag about it.  So should we.  And the uterus is pretty amazing.  It increases 20 times its initial weight during pregnancy.  20 times and 1,000 times its initial capacity. 
And then within four to six weeks after giving birth it shrinks back. 
The fourth trimester is the first three months postpartum.  And usually you don't have to be completely sedentary but for a full yoga practice I do recommend waiting four weeks and so does your care provider, I'm sure.  Four weeks after a vaginal and six weeks after a cesarean which is a major abdominal surgery to return to yoga exercise. 
Definitely use caution with crunches or boat pose or planks or anything that puts pressure out on the abdominal wall and down on the pelvic floor.  We are thinking.  There is five.  Energy directions in the body.  We talked about upenna.  The rooting and grounding.  Now Samantha -- Samana is diiesting and drawing back in and that's the postpartum yoga, is reclaiming the center.  There is max growth and now we will slow down and connect to the deeper core. 
I can share my own experience postpartum that before was a yoga teacher I was a professional dancer.  So I always been athliccic or strong in my core but it wasn't until I stretched all of the muscles that I thought were so strong with my nine and ten pound sons and then rehabilitated my core pelvic floor, die from the -- diaphragmatic breathing patterns and learned how to access the deepest layer of the core and how that connected to every breath and linking those breaths and that deep core activation and relaxation to movement.  That I was able to do press handstands, I was able to do yoga poses that previously were unachievable to me.  I thought I would never in this lifetime get them. 
It was actually postpartum and rehabilitating the core that gave me that physical connection to center.  So I think it's a window of time and an opportunity to slow down and move in non-habitual ways and strengthen non-habitual and non-dominant movers that we never really explored before.  It's an amazing time for physical practice. 
Activating and relaxing, we don't want to always be squeezing the pelvic floor can be done immediately after birth.  You might not feel your -- after birth because the nerve which innervates the pelvic floor is stretched especially with a vaginal birth.  And so you might be doing it as a mind body map to connect your nervous system to this area of the body.  But you do it anyways and then the connection grows stronger.  And so that can be done immediately after birth.  It's not a full yoga practice and you don't have to wait six weeks. 
Fourth trimester considerations for these students that magically make it to the yoga studio after they are cleared for exercise which is rare.  It's hard to get out of the house with a newborn.  Amazing if they do that's great. 
Chest opening.  Shoulder opening.  Wrists and elbows you are holding a eight pound baby everywhere you go.  Imagine that.  Twisting and back bebdzing which might stretch the abdominal core can be reduced.  Avoid a deep belly breath in a Vinyasa practice.  That's awesome and restorative yoga but not awesome in Vinyasa yoga because you want more stability around that core postpartum, especially.  Can be applied.  And pannoma and relaxation can increase milk supply. 
If your are breast-feeding. 
Here is some reasons to wait before you do a full yoga practice.  Your placenta is the size of a dinner plate.  And this is a wound.  Your placenta is birthed after your baby is birthed even if you have C-section.  You have some bleeding after birth.  This is normal but you don't want to make the bleeding worse.  You want to give this wound time to heal.  You may have stretches from C-section or perennial -- you don't want to exercise high impact because your organs are displaced and you don't want to have a prolapse which is when things start to sit lower than they should. 
Imagine the weight of an eight pound baby attached to you at all times.  It's like dreamy and blissful and also ouch.  Wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, all of it. 
This is one of my favorite fourth trimester poses.  This is me and my littlest one ray and it's great because I get fish pose and after holding that baby, it's like, ah, and then right now he is a newborn and newborns sleep all the time.  Right now he is five but in this picture he is a newborn.  But when he is awake, what he will do is start lifting his head and strengthening his Perry spinal muscles, little cobra pose and that's great helping him get ready to be a crawler. 
I will zip through this.  Postpartum depression.  This is beyond our scope of practice but we want to have a keen eye to observe if a student is indicating signs of the postpartum depression.  Make sure they seek support. 
Super common.  Scope of practice.  Yoga Alliance was awesome and put something about this in the chat so check that out. 
I want to briefly touch on this before we get into common discomforts because I think as yoga teachers, our students can project a lot of roles that we might not be licensed or trained or educated or qualified to stand in those shoes from like a nutritionist to a therapist, a spiritual guide, a physical therapist who can treat and diagnose an issue.  And you know, if you have that qualification, amazing, but be aware because somebody projects that on to you, you don't have to take it on. 
This is like what I tell someone who is graduated from my prenatal yoga teacher training that within their scope of practice to do.  They can design sequences for pregnancy and postpartum.  They can coach, they can provide general information to modify these poses.  They can listen and hold space for their student's concerns and direct a student to seek medical help if it's necessary.  They can request permission to touch and adjust postures.  And they can promote yoga as a path of wellness.  And this is even after you do a prenatal training. 
With all of that said about scope of practice, I want to touch on very briefly I will whiz through some common pregnancy discomforts because I think it's helpful to understand these common discomforts you might see in students. 
So Lourdessis is an anterior, means the bowl of the pelvis tilts forward.  The anterior tilt in the pelvis, like pee wee Herman and then anterior in a high heeled shoes.  Anterior tilt of your pelvis, the water spills forward.  And then the lumber spin moves forward towards the bump.  Like more of a back bend this causes the lower back muscles to shorten and tighten and hurt. 
This is a picture of a postpartum person with lumber Lourdessis. 
This is different than sway back.  And I often hear yoga teachers confuse these terms.  Sway back is a posterior tilted pelvis.  This is Lourdessis.  Sway back is when the pelvis goes the other way.  It's posterior tucked pelvis and the ribs sheer forward.  Like the mouth of a shark shearing open.  You can see how this is thin and stretched this skin and the fascia and the muscles across the abdomen because the ribs are opening like a shark's mouth from the pelvis. 
Then the knees lock out because of this position.  This is so common in the fourth trimester.  This person is baby wearing and the -- they got a sway back and the check, they kind of adjusted this. 
I want to share this because we cannot simply adjust someone in warrior one without a lumber lore itsis.  We cannot adjust the posture.  This is the tip of the iceberg.  And I think it's important for us as yoga teachers to understand that the core canister, the deep core that I was touching on earlier is comprised of your thoracic diaphragm, pelvic floor, back stabilizers and the deep transfer be adominous.  If you have an imbleness in strength or mobility -- imbalance in strength and mobility, imagine we call it the core canister.  Imagine a can of soda pops that been crushed on one side.  You have an imbalance and you need to strengthen.  When not on the mat and teacher isn't helping with your alignment or waiting in line in the grocery store, you will go back into your pattern it has to do with looking at the whole picture.  And strengthening that imbalances or opening around the imbalances and has to do with our breathing as well. 
It's this whole picture of breathing patterns play a big role in the way we align, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. 
Wiz through this but I will say this that postpartum, when the diaphragm is pushed upwards from baby, sometimes it doesn't descend as well and we get stuck in a chest breathing pattern this causes neck, jaw, tension, anxiety which postpartum anxiety is common.  And also prenatal, if your students are doing big belly breaths in your yoga class when they are pregnant.  This is putting pressure out on the abdominal wall that's thinning and stretching quite a lot.  An active class, if that's what you teach, restorative, it's diaphragm breath is beautiful.  Like breathing to the belly.  Breathing to the baby.  Because it helps to relax the pelvic floor and this is important to give birth. 
If you are teaching an active class, you don't want big belly breaths when that area is thinning and stretching.  Make sense? 
I will show this real quick because it's awesome.  If you have a strap or even want to put your hands around your ribs, it goes below your breaths, around your ribs -- breasts, around your ribs and can link it in and take a few deep breaths and close your eyes and feel what 360 rib breathing feels like.  When you breathe into all parts of the fabric of the strap. 
As you exhale you may feel that natural toning of the pelvic floor and the front hip points are hugging in.  Like a seat belt on an airplane.  Breathing expanding 360 into your ribs and as you exhale, feel your pelvic floor drawing in up, up, up, and your belly hugging in.  I call this hugging it around baby.  This is a great breath for a Vinyasa or an active yoga class. 
It distributes pressure. 
Sigh why theca is -- sciatica is a symptom and not a diagnosis.  When someone says I have sciatica.  It's not always pigeon pose that can help them it could be back engs continuation -- it's like if you have a runny nose like if you have a cold or flu or COVID or saw a sad movie or you have allergies, sciatica can show up for so many reasons.  Opening your mind that yeah, maybe this is beyond our scope of practice.  Here are some suggestions you could try like pigeon or standing locus. 
-- standing locust. 
Round ligament pain.  It thins and stretches as your belly grows.  Super common.  It might feel electrical here around the hip hinge.  Avoid up dog and back bends and big deep stretches in the groin and hip flexors.  Relaxen hormone affects the pelvic joints.  Here is my pelvic model. 
It affects this pad of cartilage called the simsis pubis.  It's a pad between the two bones and sometimes it can be offset and split it can affect the sacroiliac joints and affect the tailbone.  It affects not just the pelvis but the whole body.  It might be a crick in the neck. 
The vena cava carries blood from the lower body to the heart.  And around 26 to 28 weeks we don't lie on the back.  We don't lie flat on the back.  This is when you do Shavasana on your side and still do poses on your back but prop up on a wedge or tip to the side.  When you teach in your yoga class, if you are teaching like this.  That.  Your pregnant student can still be down on the ground, don't have to stay up standing.  They could.  But they could do like -- bridge pose is fine.  Fish pose is fine and here is why you are not flat on your back with the weight at the -- which is getting bigger pushing down on a vena cava.  All it takes is a wedge.  Some mid-wives well tell you can sleep on your back if that's the only way to get good sleep and wedge under the side of your back with a pillow so you can kind of tipped. 
It used to be the left side -- I still cue roll to the left or savasana for energetic reasons.  You can lie on either side, left or right, just not flat on your back. 
Daisitouss rect i, it's the thinning and stretching of the rectus away from the midline.  100% of pregnant people will get a related.  It's called injury based daisitouses if it lingers for longer than two or three months postpartum and then see a pelvic floor physical therapist.  You see this.  See that thinning and stretching.  Heartburn, super common as the valve between the stomach and eselfs can relaxed.  Fatigue and knowing when to go with the grain and take a rest and go against the grain and build your energy is part of the maze of pregnancy. 
Headaches, common from hormonal and metabolic shifts, stress and insomnia.  Eye pillows, bandaging around the forehead and eyes and neck really forward folds.  Nausea is super common in the first trimester.  Circular breathing.  You don't hold the breath when pregnant but inhale for four and exhale for four.  Steady rhythm breathing can help you ride the waves of nausea.  So you stay a little more calm and centered in yourself. 
Poses to avoid.  Obviously, since it thins and stretches the abdomen.  If you are cueing this in class, teach bridge pose instead.  If you are cueing this in class.  Sit-ups and crunches, like boat pose, you can have them come to all fours and do the core conscious breath where they might purse their lips and blow out, hug in and up around pullvic floor and hug in with the deep core.  Or like a wall squat.  This is really powerful.  Five breaths here.  It's great.  You don't have to flatten out the curves of your.  Balance pose, thinking of the core in 360.  Deep twee'ses avoid but twee'ses are beneficial, they improve bladder function and blood flow to the kidneys.  You can open it or like this.  But you can do it.  You can still twist the same direction.  Here we come down to the all fours instead of a closed twist.  Or you can open up space like this from the lunge to a more open shape.  There is space for the bump.  I walked the hand and foot wider.  I'm not having to go the other direction.  I often find yoga teachers will teach side angle.  They can twist the same way, they need space.  Maybe they twist from the bra line up so theyaround wringing the sections of the uterus 
.  You can do a sunbird.  We talked about some modifications for deep back bends. 
You don't hold the breath when you are pregnant.  Hugging in and around baby.  We don't jump the feet apart.  And this is both implantation but also pelvic laxity.  We wiggle walk the feet apart.  Gentler on those soft and tender hip joints.  Don't do inversions away from the wall during pregnancy.  There is rapid shifts in growth in baby and center of gravity.  We avoid deep flexibility work.  So active mobility work like in this digging into my heel and activating my hamstring instead of just going for it and we no longer lie down flat on the back.  Passed 26 to 28 weeks we can lie in supportive fish.  That's a great little technique to remember to support your pregnant students.  Grab a couple of blocks for them.  You can have them lie on the left side.  Here I have a wedge under my waist so that the weight is distributed more evenly from the rib cage through the waist and the hip and you don't get that bed sore feeling on the hip which is the widest part of the bead.  Put a bolster or block under the knee.  Another blanket under the cheek.  I think we did most of these poses.  I did.  I showed them on my mat. 
Lastly, how to adapt the practice for an individual who is pregnant.  It's not a prenatal class.  Just because one person walks in and is pregnant and get a prenatal class.  You want to keep the class as it's titled on the schedule and make this person feel supported. 
So some steps.  Identify and speak to pregnant students before class.  Remember, people in the first trimester might not be comfortable to share.  So verbally cue.  Think a couple of steps ahead so you can be near the pregnant student and do soft cueing to wish some cues and they will do locust and stand up and interilous an open.  And if you are across the room you can verbally cue, you won't hold your breath here, breathe in for four and breathe out.  For the rest we will do a retention. 
These are general guidelines.  But I would recommend you don't share all of them.  It will flood someone.  They won't absorb it all.  Choose three that are most relevant to your class.  I will share these with you when I share the slides. 
This is like your elevator pitch.  You choose the three that you want to share with your student and just in a little moment at the water cooler before class starts have a few key principles like grab all of the blocks.  Don't do the core work and when we do back bends you will do cat-cow.  Or bridge and squeeze a block.  Have a little map of what you might say to them before the class starts. 
This is my slide just to remind folks never assume someone is pregnant because they look pregnant.  Often folks will look pregnant up to six months, up to six years after giving birth.  So never assume.  Only talk to someone like they are pregnant if they shared that with you. 
You will get these in the slides but these are texts and films I recommend. 
Above all else, we were just teaching people how to listen to and trust their bodies.  Even if you don't have all of the answers, I hope that this presentation helps you feel a little more confident and skillful supporting pregnant folks.  This is a picture when I was in labor with my second.  40 weeks.  Gave birth exactly on the due date and those are my two sons -- and that's everything!  We made it!  Thank you all for sticking around.  Thanks, Mary, for hosting. 
 >> Thank you so much, Lily.  That was a wonderful presentation.  And thank you everyone for joining us today.  I'm just so happy to be here and just happy that Yoga Alliance is putting together webinars like this. 
Have so many notes, Lily.  I'm so excited to take all of this and integrate it into my class.  So thank you, thank you for this amazing informative session.  Again, we appreciate everyone here.  And we are excited to continue to put on events like this.  So check out Yoga Alliance.org, keep updated on the other webinars we are offering.  And then again get that CE credit so you can apply one hour toward techniques training and practice to meet that continuing education requirement.  And we hope to see you all soon.  So, yeah.  Thank you and again happy morning, afternoon or evening wherever you are and thank you, Lily.  Thank you so much. 
 >> Thank you so much.  Take good care, everybody. 
>> Yeah!