short of breath/hypnobirthing

[sunshinestarr]

My neighbor just lent be the book and some tapes and I'm so psyched!! :) But.. I'm really having a hard time with the breathing exercises. Partly because I'm 9 months preggers and baby is squashing my lungs and partly because of my athsma. :( Should I just keep practicing? I feel like I'm a very shallow breather (which is really sad to be because I used to do yoga all of the time and was great at deep breathing) and all of this slow, deep breathing is kind of a workout!

[phoebemommy]

Hiya,

I'm no expert on the subject, but I've been practicing the breathing since 4 months or so (I'm around 8 months) and I ran into a time when I was having trouble with the deep breathing. I realized I had some muscles in my diaphragm that were tightening involuntarily in response to my expanding belly. It was weird to figure out how to let those go, then suddenly I was breathing better.

If that's not your problem, it might be one of those things you have to practice early... But is it working for you? The relaxation stuff totally puts me on another planet. I would keep practicing if it does that for you. Also, my hypnobirthing instructor told us not to get fixated on breathing "right", but on finding a way to make the breathing work for us. If you modify it in a way that helps you, it's probably still helpful!

[Lilcrunchie]

I kind of had this problem w/ hypnobirthing (we used it for DS#1s birth, and BTW it worked *incredibly* well for us) initially. I think I have a really small lung capacity normally.

I really just kept practicing and figured out something that worked for me. This time around I already have a good idea of what to do, although I still could use some practice.

This is going to sound weird, but I find that for me, I inhale, very briefly pause, and then exhale, but I sort of make a whispering "heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" sound as I exhale. For some reason it helps me regulate letting my air back out better?

Keep practicing and i'm sure you'll find something that works for you :)

[sunshinestarr]

Thank you ladies! I will definitely keep practicing. I wish I had started earlier - I'm already in my 9th month!! :)

[sunshinestarr]

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