Mindfulness Meditation for Pregnancy

Pregnancy can bring with it a lot of changes.

For many women, it can be a long journey—difficult physically and feeling overwhelmed mentally.

Many moms-to-be can spend a lot of time worrying about their unborn babies, which can affect a woman’s mental health.

Personally, I experienced enormous nausea at the beginning of my pregnancy, which was followed by weight loss and stress. Practicing thought work, including meditation, was a life saver for me.

Meditation can help pregnant women in many ways, and that’s what I’m sharing with you in today’s post!

Mindfulness Meditation For Pregnancy

Some of the benefits of meditation during pregnancy include:

  • It promotes better sleep.
  • It keeps anxiety and stress at bay.
  • Lowers the risk of postpartum depression.

If you’re new to meditation and a mom-to-be, these five methods will provide you with enough options to get started, without adding anything overwhelming to your plate. I recently read an article on Healthline that discussed how doctors and scientists have studied the benefits of meditation when pregnant and how it can help you through pregnancy and birth. More on that here.

Here are the top five meditation methods I recommend for otherwise healthy pregnant women…

Method 1: 10 minutes of silence

The first meditation method I recommend is practicing 10 minutes of silence. This is my own method that I teach inside Grow You, my mindfulness community for moms.

This is one of my favorite ways to meditate because it’s easy to start doing, takes very little time, and no experience is needed.

The benefits are huge. You reduce your stress, connect with your body, quiet your nervous system, and feel more grounded. When you get up, you’ll feel like you’re living in the present moment.

To practice 10 minutes of silence, follow these steps:

  • Find a quiet space to sit.
  • Set the time on your phone for 10 minutes.
  • Sit down and close your eyes.
  • Breath in and out slowly.
  • Let thoughts pass by.
  • Connect with the white noise in the environment.
  • Connect with your body.

Additional Resources:

Method 2: Sensory walks

The next meditation method is “sensory walks.” How it works is that you take a walk for a certain amount of time, say 20 minutes, and during the walk focus all your attention on your senses, in a rotating sequence.

This works beautifully for two reasons: 1) it gets your body moving, which is important for expectant mothers, and 2) it gets you out of your head, which leads to reduced stress and anxiety.

To take a sensory walk, do this:

  • Decide how long you’ll walk for ahead of time (example: 20 minutes).
  • Every two minutes, switch your focus to one of your other senses.
  • Rotate between the five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste.
  • Continue to do this until you’ve finished your walk.

Additional Resources:

Method 3: Body scanning

To practice body scanning as a mindfulness-based meditation method, the key is to focus on the characteristics of your body, in the present moment, as a way to get out of your head (giving your mind a break), and then check-in with your body.

While you’re pregnant, your body is changing so much, but it’s likely that you’re focusing a lot on the mental things such as preparing for your baby, your birth plan, the nursery, maternity leave, etc.

This can result in a disconnect between you and your growing baby. Body scanning has the benefit of reconnecting you with yourself, your body, and your baby.

Body scanning leaves you feeling relaxed with a renewed peace of mind.

To practice body scanning, do the following:

  • Sit down in a comfortable position.
  • Focus your attention at the top of your head.
  • Move your attention down through your face, shoulders, chest, arms, pelvis, belly, butt, thighs, ankles, and feet (and any other body parts you feel called to place your attention on).
  • Spend about 10-20 seconds on each body part.
  • Notice any PATH—pressure, air, tension, or heat in your body.
  • Relax into your body and open up to it.

Additional Resources:

Method 4: Deep belly meditation

Deep belly meditation is similar to body scanning except the focus is 100% on your belly and the baby instead of rotating throughout your body.

The benefit of this meditation is that it’s specifically meant for you to connect with your baby, instead of just clearing your mind or connecting with your body.

I like to think of deep belly meditation as the beginning of starting mindful motherhood, where you’re intentionally being the mom you want to be.

Depending on how soon you show and start to feel your baby, this meditation practice can be best done later in your term, such as after 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Place your hands on your belly, gently cradling the baby. Observe the sensations felt beneath your hands. (Do you feel warmth? Movement?) Breathe slowly, in and out. (If your mind wanders off, breathe deeper into your belly.) If a thought arises, let it float away, as if it were a cloud in the sky. Try doing this for five minutes each day, gradually adding more time each week.

To do deep belly meditation, follow this process:

  • Sit or lie down.
  • Put your hands on your belly (almost like you’re holding your baby).
  • Take slow deep breaths in and out.
  • Focus all your attention on baby.
  • If thoughts come, let them go.
  • Continue to focus solely on baby, being totally present for them.

Additional Resources:

Method 5: Guided online meditation

Lastly, is guided meditation.

With guided meditation, you simply follow someone else’s teachings (typically audios) to meditate.

Guided meditations can help you have structure in your practicing meditation without you having to be the one to create it.

The benefits of online guided meditations are enormous if you practice them regularly. You’ll start to reprogram your brain, your nervous system, and your body, which is another way of saying you’ll find peace and joy day to day (trading in the stress and overwhelm you may have been experiencing).

To practice guided online meditation: look up guided meditations online, in Google. One place you might start is with Tara Brach’s free guided online meditations. Depending on whose meditations you follow, the steps will vary. Most commonly, you’ll want a quiet space, where you can sit down, uninterrupted, and follow the directions of the guide.

Another option is to download Headspace, an app that offers amazing guided online meditations. This is a paid subscription app, so while I recommended it, you may want to try the free options first!

Additional Resources:

A Final Note!

Being pregnant often isn’t as “glowing” of an experience as it’s made out to be.

Yet, you can use these meditation techniques to practice mindfulness, reduce stress and anxiety, and also feel a little bit better every day.

I suggest giving them all a try, seeing what you like (and what you don’t), then sticking with a couple of different styles and doing them daily.

These practices combined with a space to get support for moms will help you get in the right mindset before the baby comes.