The Prenatal Yoga Practice: stress reduction and other findings

Abstract

During pregnancy, women are susceptible to several factors that generate recurrent stress. Such factors, described as stressors, are considered triggers of distress symptoms that eventually develop into anxiety and depression (pre and postpartum) and even organic responses, such as increased rates of stress biomarkers like cortisol, the most abundant. Yoga was indicated as beneficial to the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system (HPA), affecting the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), with consequent improvement in physical and mental health. Thereby, the aim of this study was to identify and systematize the knowledge produced by literature on the effects of yoga practice by pregnant women on prenatal stress. To this end, an integrative content review was developed in articles from the database of the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), from 2012 to 2019. Through the search on descriptors - yoga; pregnancy; pregnancy; stress - 124 studies were obtained, among which, 13 of them met the inclusion criteria to be reviewed. After the analyzes, the outcomes of the yoga interventions were categorized as primary and secondary effects, the primary reflecting the symptoms of stress during pregnancy and the secondary representing their effects with respect to pain and discomfort during pregnancy and childbirth and health markers of the newborn. Conclusion: prenatal yoga for pregnant women is considered effective and its benefits place it as n strategy that can be prescribed, both in a preventive and complementary way in the treatment of symptoms and mood disorders during pregnancy. It should be added that, in view of the psychological impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, today, the practice of yoga can be an important tool for the mental health care of pregnant women.