For Mothers

About the Instructor Hypnobirthing® and Yoga Birth Stories Babies Remember Birth Biodynamic Birthing *The Nature of Birth and Breastfeeding, a book review* Four articles by Lakshmi New York Times Article on HypnoBirthing® April 27, 2006
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Evidence exists that a positive pregnancy and birth will make a profound positive difference to the individual throughout its entire life. *See below	It is not only that we want to bring about an easy labor, Without risking injury to the mother or the child; We must go further. We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement... The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love. ---Grantly Dick-Read 1953
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Bringing a new life into the world is a profoundly transforming experience, not only at the physical level, but at the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. The tremendous responsibility of this unique stage of life may be positive or negative for parents and parents-to-be. With Positive Pregnancy and Parenting Through Yoga, learn to tune into your body and your baby with yoga asanas (postures), pranayama (breathing techniques), deep relaxation and guided visualization. A regular practice will enhance your adjustment to the physical, mental and emotional demands placed upon you while connecting with the wonder and mystery of growing life, giving birth and motherhood. Yoga helps the expectant mother and mothers of newborns and young children to empower themselves by recognizing the instinctual ability to take care of the ensuing new challenge with all the resources that nature has granted. Practicing the five principles of yoga: proper exercise, breathing, diet, relaxation and positive thinking/meditation helps to put women in touch with their bodies, their feelings and their potential to make pregnancy and parenting a precious and rewarding, nurturing, learning experience. It is important to learn self-care including practical ways to incorporate healthy habits into your life. Sharing pregnancy and mothering experiences is also a valuable component of the classes as we help each other face similar challenges on this path of life. Childbirth is naturally a deeply transforming experience for women and for the new life, and it follows that a peaceful birth contributes not only to a better birth and recovery for mother but often to a more settled baby - alert at birth and happier overall in the early days and weeks of life. Evidence exists that a peaceful birth will make a positive difference to the individual throughout its entire life.
Pre-Natal Yoga For Schedule Pre-Natal Classes tone and strengthen the muscles used in pregnancy and childbirth to ensure a more safe and comfortable pregnancy, to help prepare your body for the hard work of labor and to help you recover more rapidly after the birth. Women’s Water Yoga For Schedule (All women welcome) Water Yoga is especially good for pregnancy, for mothers night out, or for any woman who just plain loves the water. This class only for women includes yoga postures, breathing and relaxation in a warm, private pool. Come at our scheduled time or set up a private class for yourself or a group of friends; then sleep well that night!
Mother/Baby Yoga For Schedule Mothers shape up and strengthen their bodies while enjoying exercise with their babies in a safe, home-like environment. This is a great opportunity to share experiences with other mothers of infants, crawling babies and toddlers. The children play while the mother do yoga, but they have a little exercise routine at the end just before relaxation. Watch a roomful of children calm down while their mothers deeply relax! Toys and books provided. An 8 week session scheduled over a 10 week period to allow for 2 misses (join a class 4 weeks after a vaginal birth or 6 weeks after a Cesarean.)
Family Yoga For Schedule Just as couples support each other during pregnancy and birthing, the demanding task of raising children requires that parents take special care of themselves and their relationship. Yoga helps not only with physical fitness but with stress release, flexibility, self-control, inner calm, clarity of mind and overall physical and mental health. It builds within us patience, faith and stamina, and perhaps, most important of all, teaches us the skill of relaxation which is critical for Positive Parenting. Family yoga is quality time for Mothers, Fathers and Children together while doing your yoga practice - and you don't have to get a babysitter! Bring one or two children up to 4 years old or so. We practice a Sivananda style routine while the children play and interact; the older ones may imitate you and learn some yoga too. 8 week session scheduled on a weekday evening or weekend. Mommy and Me or Daddy and Me Children benefit immensely from the practice of yoga as they learn quickly and absorb the benefits easily. For older children, 5 years and up, a class for a parent and child to do yoga together is a great way to spend quality time and learn new things that can be practiced at home...and have fun, too! This is a new class at Shanti Yoga; call if interested. Children's Yoga There are also classes dedicated to children only. In Kinder Yoga little ones 4-7 years learn yoga through play. Older children 7-14 years learn a full classical yoga routine including breathing and relaxation, and, through discussion and homework, values are taught. These 2 children's classes are being offered free as part of the service of Shanti Yoga to the community.
Childbirth Education/HypnoBirthing® For Schedule Affiliated with the Hypnobirthing Institute, childbirth education is offered in the form of Hypno Birthing®, the Mongan Method,a nationally known program that teaches everything you need to know to achieve safer, easier and more comfortable birth. Couples learn the art of using natural birthing instincts to birth their baby in a way that most mirrors the way nature intended. Gentle birthing techniques allow you to breathe your baby into the world without the fear, stress or violence of hard physical labor. The Hypno Birthing® childbirth method is as much a philosophy of birth as it is a technique for achieving a satisfying, relaxing, and stress-free method of birthing. Complementing yoga beautifully, you will learn how to call upon your body’s own natural relaxant and thus lessen or even eliminate discomfort and the need for medication. When a woman is properly prepared for childbirth and when mind and body are in harmony, nature is free to function in the same well-designed manner that it does with all other creatures. You will be fascinated as you view films showing laboring mothers awake, alert and in good humor. Hypno Birthing® teaches you to release all prior programming about birth, how to trust your body and work with it, as well as how to free yourself of harmful emotions that lead to pain-causing and unyielding muscles. With HypnoBirthing® you will not be in a trance or a sleep state. You will be aware and fully in control, but profoundly relaxed - giving yourself a peaceful birth and giving your baby a great start on life. What a wonderful birth-day gift for both of you! For more information on this national childbirth education method, see www.HypnoBirthing®.com
Spiritual Motherhood Creating a Peaceful Family Spiritual Motherhood - Creating a Peaceful Family is a program of special courses for mothers based on the conviction that if we try to work on ourselves striving to achieve a personal state of health and peace, we can become centers of harmony and bring true joy and peace to ourselves, our families, our communities, our nation, and to the world. While the classes are based in practical matters of daily life, the goal remains the same: creating peace. In today’s culture, violence has become the norm. It takes knowledge, courage and forbearance to go against the tide to practice non-violence in our daily lives in thought, word and deed and especially in the way we raise our children. This program is a modern approach based on ancient teachings along with a strong support system to step forward and walk this extraordinary path. Courses offered include Motherhood and Ayurveda, Food and Peace, Stress Management for Working Moms, The Feminine Cycle - Know Thyself, and a preconception seminar: A New or Old Soul for My Womb. A Spiritual Motherhood Book Club for mothers of young children (infant - 7 years or so) can also be facilitated depending on interest. Specifically on health care, we work with Ayurveda, the sister science of Yoga. The Ayurveda system focuses on disease prevention, promoting ideal health, lengthening lifespan, and helping to bring individual and collective life into harmony with natural law. Many minor or major health complaints from the childbearing year are due to imbalances and if left unattended can become chronic, even lifelong, problems. Ayurveda can help a woman tune into this, bring her to balance, help her discover real health and vitality, and prevent serious future health problems. About the Instructor Linette Landa (Lakshmi) began teaching Pre-Natal Yoga and Mother/Baby Yoga with the birth of her son and 10 years later discovered the Hypno Birthing® method of childbirth as the ideal complement. As she experienced personally, from the very beginning of a new life and the beginnings of a family, yoga offers health, happiness and harmony to mothers, babies and the whole family. Complementing other teachings at the Shanti Yoga Ashram where Lakshmi lives and practices, both yoga and Hypno Birthing® classes are experiential so all may enjoy and benefit from the natural, peaceful way of life. Shanti is the Sanskrit word for peace. Shanti Yoga is devoted to promoting peace to individuals, families, communities and the world - with special programs for mothers who are the foundation of the family. The deep relaxation, breathing techniques, self-awareness, knowledge and understanding, and the natural, non-violent approach of Hypno Birthing® helps bring women and the birthing community to a more peaceful place and, most importantly, to give babies the best possible start on life. We give thanks to Marie Mongan, founder of Hypno Birthing® and Director of The Hypno Birthing® Institute, and are grateful to be able to offer this service. Lakshmi has been a certified Pre- and Post-Natal Yoga Instructor since 1993 and Hypno Birthing® instructor since 2003 along with teaching Women's Water Yoga and regular Hatha Yoga classes. With her husband, she also manages the Shanti Yoga Center for Harmony and the School of Life, with its many service programs, where people live, work and study according to their level of interest in yoga as a way of life. *For information on Pre and Peri-Natal Psychology see www.birthpsychology.com