Prenatal Yoga with Nicky Poole

Fear and difficult emotions are often part of the pregnancy experience, and many women turn to yoga - or continue their yoga - through their pregnancy to help with the anxiety of navigating pregnancy and labour. Nicky Poole is an experienced mum, prenatal yoga teacher, and teacher trainer, and we chat about moving from rules-making to contextual reasoning to think our way through what's appropriate for parents-to-be.

We chat about...

• Nicky’s background as one of the first studio owner’s in Vietnam with her first studio in Ho Chi Minh City
• Her move to Canada, and starting her teaching career in Toronto as she also became mum to her second son
• How parenting influences teaching yoga, both the content and the practicalities
• The pressures on women to perform pregnancy in a particular way
• The culture of fear around pregnancy and labour, and how we can support women in processing their experiences
• Allowing for the multiplicity of emotions that women may have, and acknowledging that there’s no homogenous birth experience
• The importance of cultivating trust in a prenatal yoga community and cultivating dialogue
• Sensitivity to pregnancy loss in a prenatal setting
• The importance of talking about labour in prenatal yoga settings
• Teaching prenatal yoga teacher training with logical reasoning and discussion rather than rule-making
• Minimizing postures that increase intra-abdominal pressure during pregnancy
• Creating space for both strengthening and relaxation in prenatal classes, including teaching them how to activate their pelvic floor and learning to relax the pelvic floor
• Some excellent resources for yoga teachers interested in learning about female anatomy and labour (all linked in the show notes!)

Find Nicky at www.nickypoole.com

The intelligent edge yoga podcast was produced by Kathryn Anne Flynn; author of Teach Kind, Clear Yoga: A Guide for Practitioners and Teachers. To learn more about Kathryn, practice online, or find retreats and training opportunities, visit kathrynanneflynn.com