Does fertility yoga help you get pregnant? // reader question

Subject: Does fertility yoga help you get pregnant?

Hi Bettina,

Thank you for all of the great fertility classes on Youtube. They are helping me feel so much calmer and less stressed. I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence but my cycles have also become more regular the last couple of months. Do you think fertility yoga affects this?

I have a couple of other questions for you. Does fertility yoga help you get pregnant or does it just help you to not feel so stressed when you’re trying to get pregnant? How often should I be doing it?

I hope to hear back from you.

Charlotte, Canada

Hi Charlotte,

To be honest, there’s very little research showing direct links between practising yoga and conception, but fertility yoga has so many benefits when you’re trying to conceive. It relieves stress – which we know negatively affect conception. It also helps to lower cortisol levels (the stress hormone), which increases your risk of miscarriage.

While it hasn’t been widely studied (because it’s a tricky area to study), research has shown that yoga can improve success rates during fertility treatments.

I usually recommend women aim practise 3 times each week. But I’m all about listening to your body and using yoga to help balance your life. So if it feels good, you could practise every day. If you can only fit in a couple of times per week, then that’s great too.

I’ve included some more information below for you on fertility yoga.

Thanks again for practising with me.

Bettina

[If you’d like more information on fertility yoga and some classes to get started, download my free guide here. ]

fertility yoga help you get pregnant

What are the benefits of fertility yoga when you’re trying to get pregnant? 

I can’t guarantee that yoga will make you fall pregnant. (Oh how I wish I could). But I do wholeheartedly believe that it will improve your chances.

It will also drastically improve how you feel throughout the whole process. Yoga gives you a practical way to come down from the stress. It helps to ease some of the obsessive fertility thoughts and can help you find a way to trust in the process.

Yoga helps you to surrender to what is really beyond our control. It will also give you the best chance of conception by reducing stress.

The short version of it is. Stress extra cortisone and adrenaline in the body hormones out of balance fertility cycle is effected.

The worst part (as you probably already know) is that it becomes a vicious cycle. We feel stressed about the fact that we can’t conceive or carry a baby which affects our hormones (and reduces our chance of conceiving) which makes us even more stressed. (And on and on it goes).

Need more convincing?

+  Studies have shown that the anxiety and depression levels of women struggling with infertility are equal to those suffering conditions such as cancer, HIV and chronic illness. (Except usually when you’re struggling with infertility we are doing it silently).

+  Harvard Medical School published a report in Fertility and Sterility showing that women are 3 times more likely to conceive by practicing yoga and other relaxation exercises than women who do not. An astounding 55 percent of the participants in the group who were taught yoga, meditation, negative emotional releasing techniques, imagery exercises and nutrition conceived within one year.

+  yoga increases the energy and blood flow to heart and reproductive organs.

+  regular practise helps to support and regulate your hormones


+ yoga reduces the level of stress hormone in the bloodstream.

Is anything in yoga harmful when you’re trying to conceive?

If you’re practising under the guidance of a qualified yoga instructor, it is unlikely that you will do anything that will harm your chances of falling pregnant. Generally, a fertility yoga teacher will recommend that you don’t compress the belly during certain stages of the cycle (ovulation and the two week wait). 

Even though belly compression in these early stages is unlikely to cause any issues to a pregnancy (many women are unknowingly pregnant at this stage after all), we take a ‘soft belly’ approach in fertility yoga to encourage circulation and because it feels much more comfortable to avoid compression as the belly bloats in the later stages of the cycle. 

How does fertility yoga differ from regular yoga?

Fertility yoga is usually a very gentle form of yoga practise that focuses on calming the nervous system (IE. reducing stress) in order to allow the body to enter the ‘rest and digest’ state which is arguably where the reproductive system works the best. Fertility yoga considers the cyclical nature of a woman’s body and views certain practises suitable for some stages of the cycle and not others.  

How do I start fertility yoga?

Start by downloading my free guide or trying out this class below.

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