Your body was made to squat. Have you ever watched little kids and how they move up and down? They naturally go from standing to squatting and back up again. Where did they learn that?
Squatting for your birth may not be in the cards for you, and I totally get that. I have yet to birth squatting myself. However, there is TREMENDOUS benefit to doing it a lot during your pregnancy and then while you’re in labor.
Benefits Of Squatting
When you’re pregnant, all of the muscles and systems that literally hold you up are within your legs, pelvic floor, and lower core. As you strengthen these areas with your growing body, you will have much less of a struggle during your pregnancy and birth.
Many benefits of squatting during pregnancy include:
- stronger ability to carry your baby
- greater balance and flexibility
- less back pain
- decreased incontinence
- stronger pelvic floor
- less likelihood of hemorrhoids
- decreased pelvic pain
- greater ability to squat during labor and delivery
As you strengthen the most important parts of your body necessary for labor and birth, you will have a MUCH easier delivery.
As you strengthen the most important parts of your body necessary for labor and birth, you will have a MUCH easier delivery. If I had to pick one exercise to encourage mothers to do during pregnancy it would be squats. Not kegels, but squats.
Related: Easy Pregnancy Exercises - Your Best Investment
Even though it’s not always feasible or comfortable to all mothers during labor & delivery, there are a number of benefits to squatting during your birth too.
- encouraging proper positioning of the baby
- allowing gravity to work with you
- aligning your birth canal effectively
- opening up your pelvis an additional 1-2cm
The sheer fact that you can get additional space for your baby’s head to work through is a big motivator. All the more room, please! But there are definitely right and wrong ways to squat.
The Best Way To Squat
I was doing squats wrong my entire first pregnancy. I had to have a trainer at the gym correct me. Now I LOVE doing squats and they are part of my regular routine, even when I’m not pregnant.
Often when we’re just moving about, we’ll squat down and balance on our toes. It takes less effort and less muscular strength. But this isn’t what you want to do.
You want to:
- keep your feet flat on the floor,
- engage your thigh, butt, and core muscles to keep you upright,
- keep your knees above your feet,
- your back straight,
- your bottom out, but your back still very upright,
- lower yourself to the ground as far as possible, and just hold it there.
Every time that you need to move downward, squat, don’t bend.
You may not be flexible enough to dip down far flat on your feet, that’s okay. Just consistently doing this every day will create the strength and flexibility your body needs.
Over time when this becomes easy for you, you can add weights to further strengthen your squat.
Related: The Best Pregnancy Exercises To Keep You Strong
Keep Squatting
Even if you’ve never done squats before, pregnant or not, they are one of the BEST moves to keep you strong. It’s amazing how fast you will lose this strength when you aren’t consistent.
I even catch myself bending over when loading the dishwasher and I wonder why it hurts … because I’m not squatting! Then I have to remember and do it the right way.
>> Revolutionize Your Bowels With The Squatty Potty <<
Keep squatting, keep going, your body will absolutely thank you. You will NOT regret the benefits of squatting.
What’s your favorite way to squat?
Remember …
You can do hard things.
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Amber says
I believe it! I was working in a preschool classroom up until 37 weeks or so, and so I did A LOT of squats, getting down to the kid’s eye level. I think it helped me birth my 10lb 4.5oz baby with no drugs and less than 40 minutes of pushing!
That’s fantastic, Amber! I would love to hear your full birth story. How long were you in labor?
I totally don’t have a clue on exercises for pregnancy. It’s amazing how a simple squatting position could benefit mum-to-be greatly. I suppose the opening up the pelvis part will make the giving birth process easier? And does it make for better recovery after delivery?
Absolutely! The squatting position strengthens the mother’s body the most effective way possible for birth and even creates more space for the baby to emerge. Thanks for your comment, Kenny!
An interesting article about squatting and pregnant women. I had no idea this would be recommended for pregnant women and the benefits are amazing. I like that it strengthens the pelvic region and decreases pain in the back. I am not pregnant, but I hate to bend and I have painful reasons (smile). I am going to try some squatting and give my son a break. He will be happy to see my doing my bending instead of calling him. Does age matter?
Hi Josephine! I’m sure I understand your question about age. Did you mean does your personal age matter when it comes to strengthening your body with squats? Or did you mean does your son’s age matter when it comes to squatting down to talk or play with him?
Either way, it doesn’t matter where you are in life or how your circumstances are with your family. Squatting is an essential part of keeping your body strong that we lose in our early years from sitting on chairs. So no matter what, I would encourage you to build up that strength on a regular basis. Hope that helps!
I honestly never knew that doing squatting whilst pregnant is beneficial.
It’s amazing how many benefits this exercise can be for pregnant women, pack pain included.
Thanks for creating a very helpful post =)
You’re welcome, Lawrence! Feel free to share.
I had two 9 lb babies with no drugs. I believe that being physically active and flexible helped a lot. I squat and bend through out the day and it made a huge difference in child birth.
Thank you for sharing that, Enid! More mothers need to hear exactly what you experienced. 🙂
Great article, Sarah!
As a personal trainer, squats are one of the major lifts we promote for strength. Also, a good 90% of our clientele are women, so this is great info for us to continue to promote.
On a personal level, I’ve been putting 90% of my efforts into yoga strength training this past month, and any pause we take to rest is either in downward dog or in a squat position as you’ve depicted. As a chronic low-back-pain sufferer myself, it’s remarkable how much the additional core work and deep squatting has helped me - essentially pain-free for the past 4 weeks.
Also, the squat is great way to increase ankle flexibility (for more advanced work) and to elongate the lower back / spine. Thanks again - I enjoyed this article!
Thank you, Mike! I’m no personal trainer, but I love working with the one we have here at my day job. I’ve learned so much from him and enjoy how every day is different at the gym.
I will share your experience with my husband. He has low back pain and refuses to exercise with me. But now it’s starting to catch up to him and I’m slowly starting to help him see the light. 🙂
Emilie says
Ah yes!!!! Squats can do amazing things for your body! Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome, Emilie!
This is really interesting! I have a love/hate relationship with squats. I find the more I do RPM (cycling) the easier I find squats!
I did at first too, but now it’s all I want to do at the gym. Having the extra tone and great butt is certainly a motivator too. 🙂 Thanks Dominique!
Really appreciate these tips as someone who hopes to start her family soon! Thank you!!
http://beyondblessedblog.com/
You’re welcome, Chloe. When you get to that point of starting your family, I would love to answer any questions you have or help you along. Cheers!
Yandra says
Great tips1 Something to keep in mind when I’m having my baby!
Are you pregnant Yandra?
Erika Ravnsborg says
That’s good advice. I didn’t think that would do anything
Oh, squatting does almost everything for your birth when it comes to physical strength and optimal positioning. Give it a try, Erika. 🙂
Hi Sarah! Great article! I was never a fun of squats until my trainer showed me the right way to do them !I totally got hooked on them when i started to see the benefits.It’s good to know that they are completel0y safe to do throughout my pregnancy right up to to delivery! Will keep on squatting!
That’s awesome Maria! I wasn’t doing them right either in the beginning and actually did a number on my knees. I love doing back squats at the gym now, where I’m weight down with a barbell on my back while pressing upward. Thanks for your comment!
Awesome article, but wow. I have done squats for years and knew they were beneficial to our health but didn’t know they were this good for pregnant women either. The amount of benefits you can gain from these are extraordinary, you’ll be silly to pass these up.
Even though I’m a guy, I always see women complaining about back pain during their pregnancy, so the ‘less back pain’ benefit might be something a lot of these girls would want to try out.
Such a great and helpful article.
Thanks so much,
Brandon
Thanks Brandon. Feel free to share with loved ones.
Very fun read. Will start squatting today 🙂
Awesome, Chen!