Can You Do Hot Yoga While Pregnant? – Yoga Safety Tips

Making fitness a priority pregnancy is a must. There are advisable physical fitness exercises that will give lots of benefits for a pregnant woman. Hot yoga practice has a lot of benefits in your mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life. But, it’s a different story for pregnant women. So, can you do hot yoga while being pregnant? Read on, and let’s find out. 

What is Hot Yoga?

Hot yoga is a form of yoga exercise performed in a very warm and humid studio or room that results in substantial sweating. Most commonly, the room is heated to approximately 105 F (40 C) and has a humidity of 40 percent. If the air temperature is somehow higher than your body temperature, there is a tendency that yours will continue to rise.

It is typically a 90-minute program that consists of a series of different standing and stretching postures. The postures are lengthy, strong, and require constant tensions of all major groups of muscles. The challenging nature of the poses and the heat are projected to raise your heart rate and exercise your muscles. The heat factor in hot yoga helps to sweat out toxins, stretch your muscles, and improve circulation throughout your body.

Here are comfortable yoga apparel:

• Plus Size Yoga Pants
• Maternity Yoga Pants
• Yoga Toe Socks

Can You Do Hot Yoga While Being Pregnant?

For more important health reasons, pregnant women should check in with their doctors first before participating in this form of yoga. If your doctor has ruled your pregnancy as a low risk one, then you can proceed to do hot yoga. But some pregnancies have higher risks than others for a variety of reasons, and sometimes you may not be mindful of.

Pregnancy causes changes not only in the physical body but also in the blood pressure. Can you do hot yoga while being pregnant? Well, doing hot yoga can increase the risk of heat exertion, and may cause fainting for some pregnant women. Exposure to such levels of heat and high body temperature can be harmful to the baby.

There are many possible risks of doing hot yoga during pregnancy that can lead to several health issues. Simply standing in a heated room is usually agonizing for women who are pregnant as their body temperature is already a little higher during pregnancy. Doing those hot yoga postures may also be too hard to do for a pregnant woman. For some women, practicing hot yoga can also lead to dehydration.

The primary concern is that overheating of the body during pregnancy is dangerous for the baby, affecting the organ and brain development. Medical experts say that it can increase the risks of congenital neural disabilities and the risk of more serious defects. Additionally, you can check if there are available hot yoga classes, especially for pregnant women, that include some of the postures but do not necessarily make use of much heat.

With all that being said, pregnant women are still advised to skip hot yoga for other alternatives whenever possible because it may not be worth the risk. You can opt to explore different aspects of yoga, such as meditation, gentle stretching, breathing, and prenatal exercises.

Introducing Prenatal Yoga

If you’re still worried if you can do hot yoga while being pregnant, don’t fret. Prenatal yoga is carefully studied and designed for moms-to-be and is considered for women who are in their different trimesters. Prenatal yoga is one of the best types of exercise for expectant mothers because it focuses more on the pelvic floor work, and on breathing exercises and that which establishes a connection with the growing baby.

This type also helps mothers prepare for the upcoming exhausting labor and delivery. Many pregnant women who did prenatal yoga during their pregnancy have achieved good results. The procedures are way more about stability and flexibility. Props are also used to modify your poses and ensure your balance.

Conclusion

Can you do hot yoga while being pregnant? Hot yoga involves specific considerations that pregnant women must think about before practicing. It is the personal choice of pregnant women whether or not they should do hot yoga. Every pregnant woman has different conditions. While others may find the practice soothing, others don’t.

Hot yoga can help in the improvement of hormonal problems and some health issues. Still, if you have never done hot yoga before pregnancy, it is best to stick to a suitable yoga form of prenatal yoga. Your baby’s safety should come first before anything else. You can practice hot yoga after you safely deliver your baby. There will always be plenty of time after the baby is born to tackle your hot yoga goals.

Get started with easy yoga poses and boost your health and confidence!