Pregnancy Guided Meditation

Meditation during pregnancy allows the mother to improve her mind to be able to deal with the stress of childbirth. Also, the fetus and mother both benefit from the practice of meditation as the affects---such as lowering blood pressure and heart rate---are passed through the umbilical cord. According to the book, The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, anxiety during pregnancy creates high levels of cortisol and adrenaline, which puts stress on the body. Meditation can help lower a mother's stress level significantly.

Other Benefits of Pregnancy Guided Meditation

• Kathleen Hall, founder and CEO of The Stress Institute and Alter Your Life, notes that women who "meditate lower their heart rates by three beats a minute and (increase) their theta brain waves, the relaxing ones that appear right before sleep."

  She adds that meditation can help from conditions including depression, hypertension, insomnia, chronic pain, immune function, memory, aging and cholesterol.

Steps to Guided Meditation

• Dr. Hall recommends the following steps for a guided meditation:

  First, find a quiet place to meditate. This could be a bedroom, room in your house, office with the door closed, inside your car or garden. Then take time to focus on your breathing. It might be most comfortable the further you are along in your pregnancy to lay down, preferably on your left side.

  Find a specific set of words to focus on during your meditation. It could be anything from "peace" to a religious phrase that gives meaning and relaxes you.

  Relax or have a passive attitude. Take a deep, cleansing breath to the count of four. Inhale for four counts and exhale for four counts. Next, find a comfortable place to sit, which could be a pillow, chair or cushion. If you lay down, be sure to lay on your left side, as it keeps pressure off the inferior vena cava, a large vein that is important for you and your baby. Prop yourself up with pillows, if necessary, to make yourself comfortable.

  Hall says it is normal that your mind will begin to wander or worry about your daily activities. Try to allow those thoughts to "float away," she says. To do so, visualize these thoughts as "soft white clouds against a pure blue sky and watch the thought clouds float away. You may like the image of your thoughts being balloons, and see the balloons disappear. When you have a thought, choose to gently blow it away, and come back home to your breath."

  Return to your breathing exercise, and focus on the set of words that you chose. Repeat those words or word repeatedly, very slowly. Then pause for one minute. Continue this exercise again as you allow yourself to go into a deeper state of relaxation. Pause again for one minute.

  Finally, focus on your breathing exercise, and say your set of words on last time. To start coming out of meditation, bring awareness to your breathing. Take a final cleansing breathe to the count of four. Inhale again for four counts and exhale again for four counts. Take time to relish in the gift of relaxation you have given yourself for the day.