Does pregnancy take your breath away?

Sharing your breath with your baby

We have all felt how our breath shortens and accelerates in reaction to stress. During pregnancy, this phenomenon occurs with more frequency for a number of reasons. Just climbing a flight of stairs can leave you feeling out of breath. You might also notice that it is harder to slow your breath down once you are short of breath.

To make matters worse, breathing becomes more strenuous as it is countered by the weight of your growing baby bump. The center of the diaphragm has trouble sinking to create a full inhale, and at the same time the growing baby and uterus are both pressing upward. The other function of the diaphragm is to help widen the thoracic cavity to create space for the breath in the sides of the body which also becomes more difficult to achieve as the weight of the abdomen increases and pulls downwards.

Four areas for breath to take space

In each breath we take, the lungs have the ability to stretch in 4 directions to fill completely:

1. Downwards: This is called abdominal breathing. The abdomen expands and contracts with each breath.
2. Outwards (left and right): Here you see the sides of the body expand on the inhale and contract on the exhale.
3. Wide (across the back): You can observe this breathing when the back expands and rounds under and between the shoulder blades on the inhale and sinks inward on the exhale.
4. Upward: The sternum rises on the inhale and sinks on the exhale.

Breath, flexibility and strength

Many of us only take advantage of one or two of these spaces in our normal breathing patterns. There are many factors that come into play here and so your individual breath pattern is unique to your personal life experience. During pregnancy, the ever-growing belly challenges your normal breathing patterns because it limits the space available for you to breathe. The key to supporting a deep, full breath is the mobilization of all of the areas available for breath to take space and to practice recruiting them all.

The good news: Hormonal shifts during pregnancy allow the body to easily develop the softness to create respiratory space in the upper body. It also leads to more general flexibility in yoga movements where flexibility of the torso is necessary. This allows you to use your breath to create shape change in the upper body with more ease, which can result in more complete range of motion as you move. If you stick with a gentle yoga practice after giving birth, you can also enjoy this newly-gained flexibility in forward bends, backbends and twists.

The stability of the core plays a very important role as far as the abdomen is concerned. It is only when the back is stable and creates space that the breath can open up in the other areas of the torso. What's more is that the powerful muscles of the core not only protect your inner organs, but they also give a supporting hug of protection to your baby. The shape of the belly becomes rounder as the pull of fascial tension remains well-balanced.