What Are Some Benefits of Prenatal Yoga?

• Transcript

  Kaely Harrod 00:04

  Welcome to doula Tips and Tits. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about doula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaely Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born 12 nearly 13 years ago. I am a birth and postpartum doula childbirth educator, La Leche League Leader and a doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

  Kaely Harrod 00:42

  Hello, and welcome back to doula Tips and Tits. I have another provider here with me today. Joanna Olivas so I should have asked you is that

  Kaely Harrod 00:55

  she is a wellness practitioner, and honestly a wealth of knowledge on all different topics. So right before we started recording, I told her she'll be back, I need to have her back for at least three other episodes. And I know you've heard me say that for a variety of these providers. Part of it is that people have lots of different services that they offer that are wonderful and beneficial to you and also to your clients. And so today we're focusing on yoga, but that is not the full extent of her work. So Joanna, I would love for you to take a minute to tell us about yourself and the wide range of stuff that you do and how you kind of got to where you are.

  01:37

  Yeah. Well, hi, everyone. My name is Joanna leave us and I am here in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area. And so I offer a wide range of services, like Kaylee was saying with the overall intent being to help you shift away from relying on external validation. But what does that mean? So all of the work that I do is meant to guide women back to self love. So that's through yoga and energy healing work, all of which is going to touch on the physical, the vibrational and the emotional aspects of yourself. The physical practice is really a chance to explore connection to yourself, the vibrational level is a way for you to connect to your emotions and move energy in the body. And the emotional level allows you to explore growth. I like to think of any session that you do with me across the wide range of potential modalities that I'm working with is a way for you to come home to yourself. A little bit more just about me, I'm a first generation daughter of Latin X parents, my mom is from Ecuador, my dad's from Nicola, you know, as a mother of two girls here, my path to self self discovery wasn't set in motion was actually caught on, let me back that up was actually set in motion about 13 years ago. And I was working in the nonprofit space and was working on the really heavy topic of human trafficking, executive leadership, you guys need to take care of yourself as what they told us. And then they brought yoga to us. And that was my first time ever doing yoga. And all of the practices that I've kind of built up over the last 13 years plus has really helped form the foundation of reconnecting and Reclaiming my connection to self but also my connection to my ancestral roots. I have guided a lot of people over the years, I think my head count is way over 1000 At this point through the usage of sacred cacao sound healing, meditation, yoga and breath work.

  Kaely Harrod 03:41

  I love that so much. Because I think there I think we sort of in in the US, we have a way of like separating things out right and thinking about like this one thing, rather than thinking like all of these things go together and impact one another. So I really love that your work sort of makes that seen and known. You know, I mean, because then you're not just saying like, we're gonna work on the stretching part, you know, we're gonna work on the muscle portion. We're gonna work on all of these different things because they do impact one another and they're connected, you know.

  04:17

  So I've been thinking a lot about that recently of how, for me, my gateway into everything wellness was through the physical aspect was through going to that first yoga class at the end of the class, they put us in Shavasana. It's the the final resting pose. And I think she knew we were all super stressed. She left us in there for 10 minutes with legs up against the wall. And my body felt this sense of ease I had never felt before in my life. You feel the tension and the stress lifting off and I was like, what is that? I need more of that in my life and I went on and then several years of training later. Yeah, here I am with all those different modalities that I'm Benjamin.

  Kaely Harrod 05:00

  Yeah, I love that. Because there's also so often like one little shift in our own lives that lead us, especially in service based businesses, but in like birth work or birth, adjacent kind of providers, it is often something in us that we're like this thing happened or this thing shifted. And then here I am, all these years later, partially because of the benefit it had in my own life. And then I like, have had the joy of providing it to all these other people, you know. So for today, we're focusing on prenatal yoga, which feels very limited, because you have so many amazing things. But I would love for you to share a little bit with with the doulas that are listening about the benefits of prenatal yoga, and how to kind of identify if someone would benefit from it. I don't know that there are people that wouldn't benefit from it. Right. But kind of what they can think about in terms of referring clients to prenatal yoga. Yeah.

  06:07

  So I'd like to use the story of myself, because I think I had already had an established yoga practice before I got pregnant. And I waited before I actually went to a prenatal yoga class. For me, at the top of the list, there were two things personally, but over the years, the more that I've been in, in, in, in spaces, you know, where I'm leading classes on prenatal yoga, very different pre pandemic, then, you know, during pandemic, and then obviously, where we're at now. And my practice has shifted of how I teach, you know, in all three of those phases, I always think of like pre pandemic, I was teaching three prenatal yoga classes a week, while having a full time job, during the pandemic, I myself was pregnant, and we couldn't go anywhere, right. So I was teaching 100%, virtually, and now it's a little bit of a hybrid. So keeping that in mind, I think the number one aspect of prenatal yoga if it is being done in a group setting, and I think that there isn't really that many places available here in the DMV that offer it in group settings, but is community. And then the second part of that is mindset work, because you're working with learning how to use the breath and how to use meditation, but also having a different level of awareness and connection with your body and with baby. And so for me, that is, you know, that's going to be what's at the forefront of the benefits, the community building aspect, even if it's just with the practitioner that's leading them. And then, you know, the second part of that being, being able to really start to put themselves especially if they're a first time moms start to put themselves in the position of alright, I'm learning techniques, giving them assurance that they're going to know what to do, they're going to have a tool set, they're going to have something in their back pocket that they can come back to, for them to lean on, especially during labor, but even beyond labor, like once they get to postpartum, it's so important to learn the benefits of how you can use your breath, to take you from a place of anxiety and nervousness. Back to this regulation of Ra, I'm breathing, I'm focusing on my breath, I'm focusing on my connection to baby. So I think those for me are like the most important aspects community if you're able to find a place that is offering group classes, and then really the meditation and mindset and breath work aspect of yoga, and you're really having this different physical connection with your body. Because if you think about it, you know, when we're pregnant, your body is going through so many changes. And most women when they start practicing, if they're going to the group prenatal classes, just from what I've seen over the years, they're usually like second third trimester, right? So they're also dealing with their own changing body image. It's also giving them a chance to really feel empowered in their bodies know that their bodies are capable of this beautiful miracle of birth, but also just the strength that they inherently have within them. I love that.

  Kaely Harrod 09:14

  And one thing I will like, add maybe to that is that I think something that yoga, I practice yoga myself and and I'm not, I'm a novice, I would say my yoga practice still. But one thing I love is that many times in the practice of yoga, there's a kind of emphasis or encouragement to listen to your body right and to like, like oftentimes I practice mostly online and and teachers will say, you know, like, do this if it feels good or do that if it feels better or try this, you know, do it a little bit longer if you need to, and that is super beneficial for labor especially, and I As a doula, I'll sometimes be teaching my client like a move to do during labor. And I'm like, Does it feel good to move your hips? Does it feel good to, you know, dip your knee like that? And they'll say, oh, yeah, in yoga, like sometimes I moved my butt around like this, because it feels like it releases. I didn't realize that will also be helpful in labor. And I'm like, yes, yes, it's helpful because there's tension in the back of your pelvis. And you feel that and you're in your body is like, Please wiggle right here, so that this will release, you know?

  10:33

  Yeah. And I think that is one of the things that they also like exactly what you said, they're going to learn how to listen to the different cues that their body is telling them, right, because when they're going through an asana practice, through a yoga practice, they're hearing different variations of things that they can do. So there's always options, at least in the way that I like to share practice with any anybody, not just a pregnant body, but anyone so that way the practice can meet them where they're at in their body, but then for them to also start to have the awareness of like you said, Oh, it feels good when I do this particular movement. So definitely agree with what you say.

  Kaely Harrod 11:11

  Yeah, yeah, I love that. So you mentioned when we were chatting before we started recording, yoga in preparation for labor, I would love for you to dig into that a little bit more like what does it look like to think about your yoga practice as something that you can apply to labor? Beyond maybe just the breath work? Well, I think the breath work is huge. Right. So I'm not downplaying that at all. But what's kind of the range of application that you see in yoga with in the midst of labor?

  11:43

  Yeah, so yoga, I want to come back to the breath piece, because when we're working with or when we're doing yoga, we're always connecting our breath with our movement, right, we're always going to be holding poses for a certain amount of breaths. So consciously, for 45 minutes, 60 minutes, however long the practice is going to be there always, there's always gonna be that connection to breath, which is then reinforced through like the different pranayama, the different breathing exercises that they're given during a prenatal class. And what yoga for labor and delivery can look like is, honestly, we go through the different movements. So we might do a mini flow, so they can piece everything together at the end. But we're going through exactly what you said, Oh, it feels good when I move like this. So maybe going into a tabletop position, getting them into cat cow, showing them how they can move the positioning of their knees to create more room in the pelvis as they are going to be moving it you know, depending on where they're laboring, you know, we always talk about that are you going to be laboring at home. And if you're coming to the hospital, make sure you pack your yoga mat, because you might find that when you get to a certain point in your labor, you need to move and that's what your body is asking you to do. So like you were saying before, we're going to be showing off throughout the prenatal practice, classes that they're doing, listen to your body. And then when we're talking about yoga for labor and delivery, specifically, we're going to go through different yoga poses that are going to show them alright, if I'm at this point on my yoga, if this point in my labor, here are the poses that I can come to to find relief, and then working with a partner, whoever the support person is, is going to be there for them to also be taking notes so that way they can have and I'm sure you do this with your clients like so that their their person, whoever is going to be there in the room with them can remind them alright, like maybe it's time to change positions, maybe we need to try this. So we go through a range of different positions that might be helpful. And honestly, I mean, I haven't done anything with Ukulele, but I think a lot of the stuff we're talking about is probably going to be very similar, because for the pre natal training that I did, and but just different types of classes that have led over the years, you know, I am always constantly looking to the professional birth workers of like, Alright, how can I apply this to the yoga practice? So that way, they can get reinforcement from their doula. And if they're not working with a doula, but they are at least seeing me they have a set of tools to work with during labor.

  Kaely Harrod 14:16

  I love that. And I think there is I mean, part of why I really wanted to do this series is that there, there is a connection to right, like when I'm doing movement in the body with a client in preparation for labor, I'm talking about the same exact thing like how does it feel when your knees are turned in and you have that internal rotation? How does it feel when they're out? And you have that external rotation? And when do we use those different movements? Right. And I think there's it's one thing to just sort of like intellectually know, like in labor this thing is helpful, you know, like sitting on the birth ball is a good thing to do in labor, but when you sit on it and you feel that you're up on your sit bones than not on your tailbone, you have a different kind of body connection to why that thing works. And so oftentimes, what I see is when we do that movement, when we practice that movement, then people are like, Oh, I feel that my pelvis is open when I'm here, right? I feel that that is happening in my own body. And so therefore, it gives me some also some confidence also, to be like, I'm gonna put my body like this. Because I know that does, the thing that I'm trying to do. And prenatally when you're not in the midst of contractions is an easier time to learn that right. And so part of my desire in this whole series is for doulas to have a little bit more competence to be like, my clients need me to refer to people because we should not be doing this as a one stop shop kind of person, right? Like my clients need other providers that are not only reinforcing the things that I'm teaching them, but teaching them other things that can benefit the whole process of preparing, giving birth, and then healing in the postpartum time. So I love that you like that?

  16:11

  Yeah, so we do little work through the physical poses, right, and here are different ideas for you to, to come back to depending on where you're at in your labor. But I, I personally spend quite a bit of time also talking about pranayama, talking about the different types of breathing techniques. You know, whether it be calm breathing, I did hit I did Hypno birthing for my first birth, it was inexperienced, for sure. But I remember when I was taking that course, I had already been doing yoga for several years. And I remember thinking is like, wow, the breathing technique, and the visualizations and the meditations are also very similar to what I already kind of have a background in with yoga. And then fast forward, you know, six years, five years, when I had my other daughter, I had a very established practice, and I had so many different breathing techniques to pull from that, I had two very different breathing experiences, because I was using two different breathing techniques. But I like to, again, I like to practice, give them scripts, usually give them a voiceover of me doing it as well. So they have something that they can literally have on their phone, if their partner, their partner even gets in on it too, because I will guide the first round. And then I will turn over to whoever the support person is and ask them, Do you feel comfortable guiding the birthing person through how to do this? And they usually say yes, because their partner or whoever they're with is looking at them, like you better be ready. And so they do it, and then they practice it, and then they're the ones guiding them through. All right, I'm gonna have to tell this person how to breathe, what are the things I'm going to want them to be mindful of, and I will coach them through how to how to guide someone else into breathing. But then they're also the birthing person plus a support person are learning two different aspects, right? You have the one person who's like thinking about how am I going to teach this or not teach it, but how am I going to share this at the time when I need it? And then the other person, how am I going to be receiving that and practicing it. So I guide them, I teach the support person, and then the support person, it's like a little triangle, and then the support person dies, the breathing person through the breath themselves. And so I find that to be a really beautiful exchange, right? Because they're also maybe putting themselves in that experience for the first time of oh, wait, I have to be thinking about how am I going to actually support them at the time that it matters.

  Kaely Harrod 18:41

  Yeah, totally. I love that you do that? Because I think one of the things that I really emphasize in birth is that oftentimes, it feels like you're doing it by yourself when you're the person in labor, right? So while the partner can't, like take part of labor, and usually they wish they could, right, they can join you in it. And especially when you're doing breath work when you're making vocalizations, like things like that, that another person can do with you, is so beneficial for your relationship in general, but for the labor process, so that you're not being observed in the process of labor, but this person is entering into that with you as much as they can. And I love that because it's super, super, super important to the whole process as you're going through it as a family, you know.

  19:31

  Yes. And actually, as you're saying that it brought to mind a couple I was just working with two weeks ago. It was their first time kind of doing anything in preparation for the birth and she was due within the next week, week and a half maybe and to watch the support person kind of stepped in and really embrace it and then just to watch their connection. So it was a it was a couples yoga for labor and delivery. They I asked them ahead of time some questions just to get a sense of, alright, what am I going to guide them through. And in those private sessions that I do when it is a couple, right the entire time, during the actual practice, the physical practice, they are touching. So whether it be forehead to forehead doing tabletop chat and Chow, or if it is the initial opening, where I have both of them place their hands right over baby's home, that entire time for them is really about connection. And that is a beautiful thing to watch.

  Kaely Harrod 20:35

  Yes, I love that. And I think when you have a couple that's that like, is kind of working in that beautiful connection, it's fantastic. And also, if you've chosen a support person, really intentionally, even if they're not a romantic partner, even if they're not a co parent with you, you can have that safe space with that person, which I love. Because all of these practices can be learned by whoever is supporting you in the process of labor. And I think as long as we're choosing safe people, right, like that's, of course, the main thing, then we are able to have the right hormones for birth, the right like, you know, feeling of safety and security so that labor can even happen. So all of that is a really huge piece of it, whether or not you're being supported by someone that you're in a relationship with, in terms of romantic relationship, you know, so, okay, I want to wrap us up, because I feel like we could talk forever. And I promise you, it wouldn't be long. But also the episodes just aren't long anyway. I would love for you to share how how the best way is for people to work with you if they're wanting to work with you. And I'll make sure your information is in the show notes if people want to connect. But I'd love for you just to share, like what would you love for people to know about working with you.

  21:57

  Or so you can find my website at Luna serenity.com You can email me hello at Luna serenity.com. I offer private sessions, yoga for labor and delivery, prenatal yoga sessions, even for those of you that are not pregnant, Ra all types of yoga as well. I also offer retreats, I have the Luna goddess retreat coming up in the fall I was sharing right before we hit the record button. I'm actually leaving on Thursday for a self love retreat that I'm leading here in West Virginia as well. But definitely sign up for my email list. I share a lot of information every single week with people that are on that email list. And I also have a podcast and we started to touch on some of the topics so Kalea might have to have you on there. It is called the vibrational shift. And I have right now I'm in the second season where I am doing something very similar and bringing on different practitioners. And there's usually a free meditation not free, but there's a meditation at the end, or some sort of guided practice that is LED. And those are a little bit longer. Those are anywhere from like 30 to 55 minute episodes. And then I am working on a yoga from labor and delivery course which is coming soon.

  Kaely Harrod 23:18

  That's so exciting. Yes, I would love to be a guest on your podcast, no pressure, of course. But that would be really awesome. And I'm excited to have you back for another episode on sound healing and other things that you offer that my listeners would benefit from. I really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with us today and to share your wisdom. I will make sure that all of your information is in the show notes. And until next time, I wish everyone a well informed consent filled experience. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula Tips and Tips podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at Herat doula, so we can celebrate alongside you. If you found this podcast helpful. We would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app that helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment it is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around

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Doulas play a crucial role in helping expectant parents have a healthy and positive pregnancy experience. One way they can do this is by educating their clients on the benefits of prenatal yoga. Not only can it help with physical discomforts commonly associated with pregnancy, but it can also improve mental and emotional well-being. In this podcast episode, we'll explore why doulas should consider recommending prenatal yoga to their clients and how it can enhance the overall pregnancy journey.

Johanna Olivas is our special guest today. She is a wealth of information on so many beautiful topics. Today we are diving into yoga, but I will be having her back for more episodes on all of her other awesome topics! 

Quote from Johanna:

“I want to come back to the breath piece, because when we're working with or when we're doing yoga, we're always connecting our breath with our movement, right, we're always going to be holding poses for a certain amount of breaths. So consciously, for 45 minutes, 60 minutes, however long the practice is going to be there always, there's always gonna be that connection to breath, which is then reinforced through like the different pranayama, the different breathing exercises that they're given during a prenatal class. And what yoga for labor and delivery can look like is, honestly, we go through different movements. So we might do a mini flow, so they can piece everything together at the end.”

OUR GUEST Johanna Olivas:

Johanna offers a range of services with the intent of helping you shift away from relying on external validation. Her goal is to help you reconnect with yourself through yoga, vibrational sound therapy, and different energy healing modalities. Johanna is a first generation daughter of Latine parents from Ecuador and Nicaragua. As a mother of two, her path to self discovery was set in motion more than 13 years ago. Her practices have formed the foundation of reconnecting and reclaiming her ancestral roots. Johanna has guided more than a thousand individuals with the usage of sacred cacao, sound healing, meditation, yoga and breathwork. 

CONNECT with Johanna:

Website:https://www.lunaserenity.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lunaserenityyoga/

CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or  Instagram

https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach

https://www.instagram.com/Harroddoula/

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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services

It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class

Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay