See also: Support for Parents with Pre-School Children
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are pregnant please tell me immediately (and definitely before your next class) using this page New Health Information. I am also very happy to chat to you about your yoga practice if you are considering having children in the coming months or years.
There will usually be a short pause of classes at the start of pregnancy. During classes while pregnant, you will follow the main sequence of poses doing variations or alternatives for some poses. Many of the variations are the same as the menstrual alternatives. I will have a ten minute chat with you before your first class while pregnant, to talk through the general principles of doing yoga while pregnant, and will instruct you on variations in each pose as needed during the class. You will always be able to talk to me if something feels wrong, or ‘too much,’ and I will give you another variation or pose. Towards the end you will probably do much “gentler” versions of the poses, only ever doing what you can manage, and remember that sometimes doing what feels like very little can still be very beneficial.
After pregnancy, you will have another pause in classes, for healing to take place, and can then return to general classes, building up the intensity of what you do over a few weeks as needed.
It can be hard to work out a schedule for doing classes with a very young baby. If you decide not to return to classes as soon as you are physically able, then I recommend staying in touch, and staying on the books. You just need to let me know on the taking a break page. You are welcome to drop your payment to £1 a month as many folks do (though the partial or full payments that some students make during a longer term break are always much appreciated).
I wish you the very best in parenthood, and hope that you will be able to return to classes soon. Some parents make it back just 3 months after birth, others take a year or more. There is no judgement here, and I understand that although yoga can be very helpful during any time of life, having young children can take all of your energies for a period of time. However long it takes, I will still consider you my student if you stay on the books, and I will get in touch from time to time, according to your request.
I also very much recommend the book:
Iyengar Yoga for Motherhood: Safe Practice for Expectant & New Mothers
by Geeta S Iyengar and Rita Keller.
You can take a read whether you are pregnant or in the first stages of considering having a baby.