How Our Pregnancy Fitness App Combines Exercise and Childbirth Prep

You’re going to crush labor and delivery.

Especially if you prepare for it.

Most women are encouraged to attend in-person or online childbirth classes a few weeks before their due date. But you can actually prepare for labor and delivery months in advance — with intentional pregnancy exercises. 

Let’s explore which exercises can double as childbirth prep.

The Benefits of Pregnancy Fitness

Pregnancy exercises are some of the best ways to prepare for labor and delivery. Intentional exercises keep your body strong, but they also prepare your body for the changes ahead. Here are some benefits you might experience from joining a pregnancy fitness community…

• Lowered Risk of Injury During Birth. Pregnancy exercises that strengthen and lengthen the pelvic floor can help you have a faster delivery and lower your risk of labor-related injuries (like tearing).

• Faster Return to Higher-Intensity Exercises. By exercising during pregnancy, you’ll set yourself up for a quick return to your favorite high-intensity activities.

• Easier Adjustments to Bodily Changes. During pregnancy, your center of gravity changes, and your body will need to adjust to increased weight and decreased functionality. Pregnancy exercises can make these changes easier.

• Better Function for Everyday Movement. Especially during late-trimester pregnancy, everyday movement becomes harder. The exercises you do in early-trimester pregnancy can support you during these moments.

• Prioritized Self-Care from Day One. Once your baby arrives, it becomes more difficult to prioritize yourself. Setting aside intentional time for pregnancy workouts can help you create good long-term habits.

Do Pregnancy Fitness Apps Help or Harm Your Childbirth Experience?

If you’re just celebrating twelve weeks of pregnancy, it may be hard to think ahead to labor and delivery.

Right now, you might prioritize daily pregnancy workouts and plan to sign up for an online childbirth class later.

If this is your strategy, you need to be aware of how everyday movements (and yes, even gentle pregnancy exercises) can impact labor and delivery. Strengthening your pelvic floor is essential for pregnancy, but it must be paired with lengthening of the pelvic floor. A pelvic floor that is strong but not flexible may tear more easily.

Whether pregnancy fitness apps help or harm your labor and delivery experience entirely depends on the workouts included. You’ll want to look for exercises that encourage strengthening and lengthening of the pelvic floor. You also need to learn how to engage your pelvic floor muscles properly.

A pregnancy fitness app can and should double as a resource for online childbirth classes. As a soon-to-be mom, you only have so much spare time. Each exercise provides an opportunity to prepare your body, mind, and spirit for pregnancy and delivery. Pregnancy exercises can help you find comfortable birthing positions, build a rock-solid pelvic floor, and learn to manage physical stress.

What to Expect from an Online Childbirth Class

If you hope to maintain a healthy pelvic floor and core canister after birth, it all starts with preparing your body for pregnancy. Usually, pregnancy exercises are recommended to keep you in shape as your body changes and grows.

In our experience, it’s best to combine pregnancy exercises with childbirth classes (and this is surprisingly easy to do!). Here are some methods you might run across in an online childbirth class — and how you can combine them with everyday pregnancy fitness.

Learn to Strengthen and Lengthen Your Pelvic Floor

This is one of the most important things you’ll do to prepare for childbirth. The pushing phase of labor requires your pelvic floor to move out of the way as the uterus takes over. This means the pelvic floor needs to stretch and lengthen (not engage and tighten).

Online childbirth classes should help you recognize the difference between engaging and relaxing your pelvic floor. This skill will help you properly support your body and lower the risk of pelvic floor dysfunction and injury.

Learn to Control Your Diaphragmatic Breath

Belly breathing helps you recognize the core canister muscle groups. With practice, you’ll be able to engage your ab muscles, spinal muscles, diaphragm, and pelvic floor on demand. Diaphragmatic breathing can also help you mimic the feeling of your baby in the birth canal — preparing your body for the pushing phase of labor.

Pick Exercises That Focus on Endurance

Labor and delivery is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ll need to build endurance in your muscles for long-term stress and strain. An online childbirth class or pregnancy fitness app should help you build this endurance in the right muscle groups.

Gentle Perineal Stretching

Perineal stretching is often recommended to lengthen the tissue around the vagina and prevent tearing during labor. Massage techniques are the most common way to do this, but you can actually support your perineum with exercises, too. Sitting on a birthing ball, yoga block, or foam roller can give you tactile feedback and stretch the perineum during exercises.

Strengthen Each Part of the Core Canister

The core canister includes the lower back muscles, pelvic floor, abdominal wall, and diaphragm. All of these muscles work together to harmonize the core. If one area is unstable, this can make the pelvic floor tight and lead to dysfunction. Understanding how the core canister works together and how you can support each area is a powerful way to encourage healthy labor.

Find Comfortable Positions for Birth

Knowing how your pelvic floor feels when it strengthens and lengthens is so important to your labor and delivery. It also helps you find healthy positions for active labor and birth.

As you exercise, you’ll find positions (like happy baby pose or squatting) that allow you to feel biofeedback in your pelvic floor. Everyone feels their pelvic floor engage differently, so take the time to experiment and get that biofeedback.

The Bottom Line: Pregnancy Fitness Should Always Be Combined with Childbirth Classes

Pregnancy exercises that don’t prepare you for active labor are a missed opportunity.

Committing to a workout is a big deal, and as a soon-to-be mom, you only have so much time.

Plus, pregnancy workouts move important muscle groups that you’ll use during labor and delivery. Each workout should not only make you sweat but also bring your body closer to the successful and comfortable labor you want.

In our pregnancy fitness app, we don’t believe in exercises that “pick and choose” which area of the body to support. Instead, we’re passionate about bringing you tools to support your body during every phase of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.