Wednesday, March 4, 2009

An Apple a Day


I have been advised by my midwife to walk 5 miles daily as this is the best way for pregnant mothers to work with the hormone Relaxin and properly loosen their hips to prepare for birth.  It also strengthens the pelvic floor lessening the risk for tearing and the need for episiotomy.  I'm up to about 4 miles right now and it's a welcome change to my long days of sitting behind desks or puncturing people with needles.  I am constantly enamored by the grace and beauty of the California landscape with its rolling mountains (when it's not smoggy) and vocal ocean waves.  I am in the process of studying for my comprehensive pre-clinical examination, a test that will make or break my future in the program, so I have tons of flashcards that accompany me on my walks.  Jack comes when he can and, between snippets of conversation, exhibits his patient self by asking me TCM questions to quiz me along the way.  We keep discovering new little neighborhoods that make up Mar Vista and Santa Monica and it's endearing to explore our surroundings in such a new way.
I'm also doing a yoga video that is produced by Shiva Rea, a prominent yogi out here in LA.  She teaches at my yoga studio, 'Exhale,' in Venice as well.  I'm finding that walking and yoga, which I have been practicing for five years, are teaching me so many things about my body and what it can do as they empower me to take charge in the physicality of my pregnancy and birth.  I really want to get in the water, but have not yet successfully located a swim shop that sells maternity suits to try on.  Truthfully, I have not had much time to look.  My midwife also joins in the prenatal yoga team at 'Golden Bridge Yoga' in Hollywood.  More based in the Sikh tradition, this yoga is much more mindful and spiritual than that at Exhale (though I believe that all yoga, even Ashtanga, is mindful and spiritual on some level).  It is nice to take a break from the heavy workouts I usually do which involved lifting very very heavy weights in all directions while combining it with metabolic conditioning.  Pregnancy, we are both finding, is such a transformative time.

2 comments:

  1. I've been walking now too. I forgot how I used to walk for hours and Ohio and have been happy to return--the pace is so therapeutic for the brain/mind it seems.

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  2. thanks for this blog
    here is a blog a blog
    about women health pregnancy
    and tubal reversal

    http://www.mybabydoc.com/blog/
    tubal reversal

    ReplyDelete