Yoga for Women's Health: Common Birth-Related Issues and How to Prevent or Relieve Them

Motherhood is a rite of passage and yoga is an ideal method for carrying women through that rite of passage into the fourth trimester of postpartum. Yoga can help women embrace motherhood and their new identity, as well recover after giving birth.

A woman’s body undergoes miraculous and enormous changes, a complete transformation, during pregnancy and birth. There are a bevy of issues that can plague the new mom, from incontinence, prolapse, lacerations, diastasis rectus abdominis, and/or hip and pelvic pain or sexual dysfunction to postpartum depression and a struggle to embody her new identity, not to mention having to manage the demands of caring for a newborn or work outside the home. As a result her postpartum healthcare needs, including the need for yoga, are perhaps greater than at any other time in her life.

Since over 80% of women give birth, the majority of women worldwide stand to benefit from postpartum yoga, no matter how long ago they ran the “ultra-marathon race of pregnancy and postpartum.” That means women are postpartum until they have worked through those base issues that surround pregnancy and childbirth, no matter what their age or how long ago they gave birth.

Join Dr. Ginger Garner, mother of three children, physical therapist, athletic trainer, and professional yoga therapist, for a 3-part webinar (2 lectures and a yoga practice) that will equip you with the knowledge to empower mothers of all ages and stages toward best-practice postpartum recovery self-care. She will elucidate the gaps that currently exist between postpartum medical care and yoga, and your role in closing them in order to expand your impact on the postpartum community as a yoga professional. She will present new evidence on the numerous biopsychosocial challenges new mothers experience as well as the techniques that can help guide them toward recovery.

Guidelines for breath and asana practice, safety in monitoring the new mother, and specific techniques to understand and heal the intimate relationship between pelvic health recovery and overall health and well-being will be discussed. The power of personalized yoga practice cannot be underestimated and since each woman will express a natural variance in the postpartum state there is no one “sequence” or “plan” that will work for every postpartum situation. However, the techniques introduced will be applicable to any yoga practice or individual, and consider universal themes such as injury prevention, postural control and core stability, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis regulation, healthy stress response and management, and joint preservation in postpartum yoga practice.

What You Will Learn:

• The importance of systemic changes in postpartum physiology

• Safe timelines and guidelines for commencing yoga in the postpartum

• Key breathwork that supports postpartum recovery and health

• Specific yoga techniques to address pelvic health and recovery 

• How to create awareness for restoration of pelvic strength and tone

• How the biopsychosocial approach can improve postpartum recovery

• Screening for common postpartum conditions that would require referral to a medical professional 

This Premium Course Also Includes These Great Bonuses!

• Yoga Practice Video: Enjoy a yoga practice video that Ginger has created for this course.

• Recordings of All Webinar Sessions: It’s generally acknowledged that many people only retain 10-20 percent of what they learn in a workshop. You will get access to the recordings of both webinar sessions - both MP3 (downloadable) and MP4 )streaming online), enabling you to go back and listen to the workshop as many times as you like.

• Transcripts of All Sessions: Ever wanted to refer to a certain part of a course? Even the best note takers miss a point every so often. With the transcripts of the sessions, you can go back and refer to particularly important passages or clarify sections you were in doubt about.

This course qualifies for 4 non-contact hour CEs with Yoga Alliance.