Diaphragmatic Breathing for Pregnancy & Postpartum: Core Strength, Calm, and Recovery

A serene moment of reflection as a pregnant woman gently cradles her belly, embracing the new life growing within her.

Do this with me for a moment:

1. Sit up tall wherever you are reading this.

2. Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly.

3. Take a few breaths.

4. Where do you feel your breath landing in your body?

These are some of the words you’ll hear at the beginning of every Freya Movement class. This is the beginning of the philosophy for all of the movement we teach here at Freya. We think breath work is so important for training during the pregnancy and postpartum period that we would be oh so happy to talk about breathing all day, every day. We LOVE it!

...back to the exercise...

Once you’ve settled in, we’ll ask you to observe your breath as it lands in your belly hand, rising and falling with each inhale and exhale respectively. This is a deeper than usual breath and one where you are exerting some control over your otherwise involuntary breathing mechanism.

Now we know your diaphragm is working.

Maybe you’re asking yourself… what is my diaphragm? Or, maybe you know what it is, but you’re still not sure what all the hype is about.

Today we’re going to dive into the science and data driven benefits of diaphragmatic breath, which we know will get you equally excited about practicing breath work and incorporating it into your workouts!

So, what is the diaphragm?

The diaphragm is a muscle. It sits at the bottom of your ribcage and (when it is functioning properly) contracts, or flattens, when you inhale. That allows air to enter the lungs and moves your diaphragm closer to the floor. As you exhale, this muscle relaxes, which lifts it back up into its resting position at the base of your ribs and pushes air out of your body at the same time. An image that might be helpful to visualize is a jellyfish. Jellyfish (diaphragm) expands on the inhale, and jellyfish (diaphragm) draws back in or closes on the exhale.

When the diaphragm is working properly it also allows for proper activation of the muscle surrounding the ribs, your abs and your pelvic floor muscles.

Here are 4 of the major benefits to practicing diaphragmatic breathing, including our favorite that’s directly related to the way we train pregnant and postpartum bodies during our workouts:

1. Diaphragmatic breathing is known to have a positive impact on stress and anxiety. By activating your vagus nerve and, therefore, your parasympathetic nervous system - the part of your nervous system that supports relaxation and recovery.

2. Reclaim your space! As your baby grows, they will begin to take up valuable real estate putting pressure upward into your ribs. At times it may begin to feel challenging to take a deep breath because of this. However, by practicing diaphragmatic breath, you’ll begin to create some movement in the ribs allowing for you to feel a bit more free to inhale fully as a result of the movement of the ribs, abdominals and the activation of your parasympathetic nervous system together. Of course if you’re experiencing moderate to severe pain or discomfort we would advise you to contact your doctor ASAP.

3. Diaphragmatic breathing can help to reduce pain, especially caused by tension. As you begin to relax during your diaphragmatic breathing, so will tight muscles in your body. If you’re regularly experiencing strain in certain muscle while chest breathing, those muscles will begin to calm down over time via diaphragmatic breathing, which can have two major positive impacts! First, the less tension overall, the better. Second, by relaxing muscles that are overworking due to chest breathing and/or stress, your body will begin to come into a more balanced state where other muscles can work more efficiently allowing for less compensations throughout and more unified, pain free movement. We think this is pretty freaking cool!

And that leads us, finally, to our #1 favorite benefit of diaphragmatic breath and the reason we teach it as the foundation of our classes.

1. It strengthens of the muscles you’re using when you are breathing diaphragmatically - diaphragm, abdominals and pelvic floor. This muscle group makes up your “core” and when we strengthen these muscles in concert we are strengthening the exact muscle group that allows you to support your body and your baby best during pregnancy, as well as the muscle group that you’ll want the most awareness and control over during your labor and delivery, and the muscle group that will be the most integral in connecting to as soon as possible after baby comes for a strong recovery postpartum. Not to mention, when you have a strong core your body tends to experience less pain, is less prone to injury and you can move with more ease and power without unnecessary strain.

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As you can see, diaphragmatic breathing has so many benefits; of course we’d want to talk about it all day long!!

And… it’s so easy to get started! Scroll back up to the top of this blog and read the first section again as you perform the outlined steps. Tada! You’re breathing with your diaphragm!!

Happy breathing and we look forward to seeing you on the mat very soon!