Pregnant women are being encouraged to incorporate mindfulness techniques into their daily lives as it is known to offer many benefits. Practicing mindfulness can:
- Help reduce stress
- Reduce the fear of labour
- Lower the risk of postnatal depression
- Help mother and baby bond/connect
- Promote healthy development of offspring
Mindfulness and meditation are ways of slowing down all the energy and processes ongoing in your brain and body, a great way to ground yourself. By incorporating these practices, you can focus better and be more efficient with daily activity.
I liken it to spending time cleaning your desk or office. One always assumes a lack of time for decluttering but we all know that by doing so, we actually improve efficiency. It creates even more space and time to breathe and think and focus and brings about improved reactions.
It can help regulate emotions when pregnancy hormones are raging.
It can help a mother connect with her baby
Mindfulness allows the individual to focus on the feelings and sensations they’re experiencing in the moment, allowing a mother-to-be to fully focus on connecting with her unborn child.
I often help mums-to-be within therapy sessions to master these skills-engendering positive feelings towards her pregnancy
It Promotes Healthy Development
Studies have also discovered that practicing mindfulness during and after pregnancy can help encourage the healthy development of offspring. A 2015 study conducted in the Netherlands found that babies born to mothers who practiced mindfulness starting in their second trimester faced fewer developmental problems, including with self-regulation and effortful control. Similarly, another 2015 study found that babies born to mothers who incorporated mindfulness techniques in their second trimester had a more efficient use of attentional resources, or in other words, were more attentive to sound, which is important for learning and understanding language.