The top two movements to incorporate into your prenatal birth prep routine include: internal rotation at the hip and a posterior pelvic tilt. Why? Because these two movement patterns tend to be more difficult to access during pregnancy and could contribute towards a labor stall!
Top 2 Movements For Birth Prep:
During pregnancy, we tend to favor external rotation at the hip (toes out) and extension in the spine (arching in the back). These two postural habits can make it easier to balance as our belly grows! But, if we find ourselves ALWAYS living in these positions, we could start to see some issues, such as pelvic pain, pelvic floor tension, and potentially labor stalls at birth!
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Preventing Labor Stalls with Prenatal Prep
But how can they contribute towards a labor stall??
The top of the pelvis opens more with external rotation of the hip (which is a common postural tendency during pregnancy) AND a posterior pelvic tilt (which can be harder to find during pregnancy). If we cannot find a posterior pelvic tilt, it can make it harder for your baby to ENTER the pelvis.
The bottom half of the pelvis opens more with internal rotation of the hip, and this creates more space for your baby to finish their rotation under the pubic bone for birth.
If we focus on these two movement patterns during pregnancy, we could alleviate stalls in your labor related to the passage!
Read this blog to learn more on HOW we can prepare for birth by incorporating internal rotation at the hip and a posterior pelvic tilt.
1. Posterior Pelvic Tilt: Help Baby Engage and Make Internal Rotation Easier to Achieve
A posterior pelvic tilt is when the butt is tucking underneath; this requires the hip flexor, quads, and lats (back muscles) to release and stretch, as the hamstrings and core pull the pelvis into a posterior tilt.
How can this be problematic during pregnancy?
Many of us have SHORTEN lats as we favor an extended position, so releasing tension in the lats is a great first step! We address this in the MamasteFit Birth Prep Circuit with a lat release exercise and back breathing drills!
Next, since we favor this extended position, we also tend to have lengthened hamstrings–we need our hamstrings to PULL the pelvis into a posterior position, so overlengthened hamstrings can make this more challenging.
During your prenatal workouts, you can incorporate deadlifts and other hinge-focused exercises to strengthen your hamstrings. We incorporate hamstring strengthening exercises several days a week in our prenatal fitness programming.
After you have released the shortened muscles (lats), we can focus on finding movement with pelvic tilts! We find a hip shifted variation of the pelvic tilts allows you to move DEEPER into the postures to find more release. The hip shifted variation also incorporates internal rotation, which is our next section!
Watch this video from our birth prep circuit for a break down on how to do a hip shifted pelvic tilt (and this is included in our prenatal fitness programs to prepare you for birth too)!
If you want more of a breakdown of WHAT to do throughout your prenatal workouts, check out our prenatal fitness programs! We offer it in two formats:
- 40-Week Prenatal Strength in the Teambuildr App (traditional delivery format)
- Full Version: Workouts 45-75 minutes in length, designed for the athlete with gym access or a home gym set up
- Mini Version: Workouts 15-20 minutes in length, designed for the busy person!
- Prenatal On-Demand with full-length workout videos that you follow along as you workout
2. Internal Rotation at the Hip:
Open the Bottom Half of the Pelvis
The bottom half of the pelvis opens more with internal rotation at the hip. If we cannot find internal rotation, it can make it harder for baby to finish their rotation in the pelvis and we could experience a late labor stall.
Why could finding internal rotation at the hip be an issue during pregnancy? Because we tend to favor external rotation at the hip! External rotation at the hip and extension in the spine (arched back) tend to be done together.
There is a lot we can do to support finding internal rotation at the hip, such moving through full range of motion with single leg movements, such as the lunge.
In the lunge, and other single-leg movements, we want to find internal rotation at the hip at the bottom of the movement, and then external rotation at the hip at the top. Watch this video for a breakdown of HOW to incorporate internal rotation into your prenatal exercises.
Birth Prep: How to Open the Pelvis?
During pregnancy, we tend to favor certain postures as we adjust to shifts in our center of gravity. There is no such thing as “bad posture” but staying in one specific position for prolonged periods of time could be problematic. If we are ALWAYS in the common prenatal postural tendencies of external rotation at the hip and extension in the spine, then we may find that it is difficult to find certain necessary movements to create space in the pelvis for birth!
During our pregnancy, we can focus on incorporating exercises that prepare us to open our pelvis for birth to include a posterior pelvic tilt and internal rotation at the hip. Some of our strategy is to release common areas of tension and to strengthen areas that need to PULL our pelvis into different positions.
If you want more of a step-by-step approach, join our prenatal fitness programs! We incorporate daily pelvic opening exercises so you can stay strong and comfortable throughout your pregnancy as you prepare for birth!