Pre-Natal Classes - SUCCESS!

This week I finally made it out to my pre-natal fitness classes. Overall, it has definitely been a positive experience. I've probably mentioned this before, but I'm currently signed up for pre-natal Yoga and pre-natal aqua-aerobics. For both classes, the instructors spend about 30 minutes talking about pregnancy-related things.

For the Yoga class this week, the instructor brought in an Osteopath to talk about the different therapies available for women during pregnancy, post-partum, and even for their little ones once they're born. If you don't know what an Osteopath does (and I certainly didn't until this past week), I guess they're a bit of a cross between RMTs and chiropractors. She mentioned that she treats anything from constipation to headaches to indigestions for pregnant women, to misshapen baby heads resulting from vacuum extraction or from babies spending too much time on their backs. Pretty neat. Definitely something I'd look into.

The Yoga class itself was interesting. I'd taken Yoga before, so there were no surprises. Obviously the curriculum was modified to better suit pregnant women, especially since some of the ladies in the class looked like they were going to give birth at any moment. Given that I do tend to overreact and stress easily, I think that the Yoga will help to calm my nerves. And I'm sure that Junior will thank me for it. :P

The aqua-aerobics discussion topic was also quite interesting. Again, a few of the ladies looked like they were about to burst, so the focus of the discussion was on natural labor induction. Apparently "artificial" induction happens by giving the woman a synthetic version of the substance that naturally induces labor. Sorry, I forget the name. At any rate, this artificial induction can be quite painful, which is why so many women need epidurals. Honestly, the thought of sticking a big-ass needle in my spine freaks me out, so I'd like to avoid having an epidural if I can, so this is definitely welcome news. At any rate the other fun fact was that womens' due dates are calculated at 40 weeks, but the human gestation period is somewhere between 38(?) and 42 weeks (don't know if I have the exact #s). So technically women can to into labor after their due date, and that's perfectly fine, as long as your placenta and your amniotic fluid are both fine. Basically inducing labor artificially if you don't need to results in pain. :P

So on to naturally-induced labor. Some of the things that people mentioned were:
1. Castor oil
2. Walking
3. Going upstairs sideways
4. Jumping jacks
5. Warm baths
6. Acupuncture
7. Acupressure

While apparently none of these have been scientifically-proven to work, some people swear by them. Definitely food for thought.

And as for the class itself, it was LOADS OF FUN! The instructor I had yesterday was a sub, which is too bad, because she was really peppy. Hopefully the regular instructor is just as peppy. I'd never taken an aqua-aerobics class before, so I didn't really know what to expect. The instructor stayed out of the pool showing us the moves, and we had to mimic them (same as a regular aerobics class). Of course, being in the water made it a thousand times more difficult to do some of the things she wanted us to do. It was insane. I was so tired, but I felt so energized! I was initially worried about attire since I was wearing a bikini and thought I'd be the only one. Fortunately, it was about a 50/50 mix. There were some VERY pregnant women in bikinis, so I felt relieved. I'm definitely psyched for the next class!

So overall, the classes were a very positive experience. It's really nice to be in an environment where I'm the only pregnant woman around. That being said, it was still weird, because I guess I'm still not quite used to the idea of being pregnant. The other thing is that of all the people there, I was the least pregnant-looking of them all. I'm around 3.5 to 4 months pregnant, and most women were between 6 and 8 months pregnant. It was to the point where I didn't really feel all that pregnant, because I had a heck of a lot more mobility than they did. I'm probably just over-analyzing. :P The other thing is that I'm pretty shy, so I don't go out of my way to talk to people. Most of these women already knew each other, probably from starting together (you can join whenever, but the classes do run on 10-week cycles), so I totally felt out of the loop. I'm sure that given some time things will change. At any rate, I'm glad that I did sign up for these classes. It's sure nice to be able to stay fit during this time and to know what exercises I can and can't do.