First published in Yoga & Health Magazine August 2013 Among recent developments in Western Yoga, Aqua Yoga seems particularly counter-intuitive. What about gravity and the grounding from the earth that makes us unfold the spine and find our elongation and strength? What about Yoga breathing in water? Besides, for many […]
Thank you so much Sally Lomas and Birthlight for the wonderful course in Aquanatal yoga. Kelly Bromley, Angie McClean and myself had all completed our part 1 Pregnancy Aquayoga, and have all been enjoying helping our pregnant ladies to prepare for the birth of their babies, both emotionally and physically. […]
Birthlight was chosen by the swimming company Turtle Tots to provide Aqua Yoga training to all their swimming teachers. The training of Turtle Tums has been a great success and many mums to be are enjoying the benefits of pregnancy aqua yoga, with postnatal water classes to follow soon. “Birthlight was the obvious aqua-natal […]
#oneearthonefamilyonefuture #internationalyogaday2023 #europeanyogafederation #unitedconsciousness For The International Day of Yoga 2023 we are sharing a film we recently made about Baby Yoga after filming at our Baby Yoga Festival in London at the Museum of the Home. As B. K. S. Iyengar, said “Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a […]
15th December 2004 – the day I became a mother and the start of my journey with Birthlight. Officially, my Birthlight journey began a few months before my gorgeous baby girl arrived and I am forever grateful to my excellent friend and former Birthlight colleague, Melanie, for generously offering me […]
#babyyoga #GermanBabyYoga #BabyYogaGermany Since 2023, the Baby Yoga training is offered in German for the first time with Johanna. Here you can find out how Johanna came to Birthlight and what fascinates her most about Baby Yoga: How did you come to Birthlight Yoga? It all started with the book […]
#BabyCommunicationWeek23 #AmazedByBabies #brazeltonuk Friday – Brazelton Baby Communication Week: Baby Care as Unconditional Love Parenting from a yoga perspective: a school of unconditional love. There is always more to learn, understand and give. Rewards abound along the way. The nature/nurture, genes/environment debates have evolved with neuroscientific research and epigenetics yet remain inconclusive. […]
#BabyCommunicationWeek23 #AmazedByBabies #brazeltonuk Thursday – Brazelton Baby Communication week: Nurturing Sociable Dependers with playful interaction Within weeks of being born, babies reveal their uncanny sense of humour. Long before they produce irresistible chuckles of delight, they show caregivers that they understand games in playful exchanges. After initial puzzled looks, they differentiate between a face that […]
#BabyCommunicationWeek23 #AmazedByBabies #brazeltonuk Wednesday – Brazelton Baby Communication week: co-learning baby sleep in joint relaxation Textbooks assert that newborns can sleep as much as twenty hours in a 24h cycle. This is rarely what new parents experience, even though their babies’ crying may mislead their perception of time spent asleep. Active sleep […]
This blog is a part of our weeklong, daily blog during Brazelton Baby Communication Week 2023 #BabyCommunicationWeek23 #AmazedByBabies #brazeltonuk Within seconds of being born or raised out of the water if they were born in water, babies take their first breath. This adaptation to the drastic change in their environment is dramatic […]
Eye to eye contact is privileged in our visual culture. Images of adorable gazing into babies’ eyes never fail to fascinate. Rightly so. But many new parents miss the early wonder of seeing their babies as “captivating communicators”. They stare at their newborns, wondering how to engage with these little […]
Back in 2005 I was teaching in a primary school in Tower-Hamlets. I loved teaching, but I also felt I’d left behind my teenage dream of being a massage therapist, so I went back to college to learn Indian Head Massage. At the time we (staff in my school) were […]
The fun side of Baby Yoga was evident from the early days. Then, naively, I thought teaching Baby Yoga would be a doddle. Over time I have grown to relish the challenge of drawing on Yoga to support parents whose lives have been turned upside down by taking on the […]
Marion O’Connor started offering Baby Yoga sessions in the 90’s training and working with Françoise Freedman. She has been Tutoring with Birthlight in Baby Yoga Trainings for 25 years in many countries and different settings! Marion appeared with her daughter Aimee in Françoise’s first Baby Yoga book published in 2000. […]
WABC has announced that Amanda Gawthorpe is the 2023 recipient of the prestigious Virginia Hunt Newman Award. As the 2009 Award recipient, I am delighted that Amanda has been elected by an international committee that is committed to promote excellence, innovation and dedication to forward the gentle and safe introduction […]
Holding and Handling Newborns Any new parent can remember a feeling of helplessness and borderline despair when holding a new baby who cries in persistent but mysterious discomfort. Then some experienced person comes along, and the baby relaxes instantly in their calm, secure hold. What is different? Can parents who […]
Please signup for a free Birthlight Baby Yoga session at the Baby Yoga Festival for the G20 (registration form below). Birthlight has been the pioneer of Baby Yoga since the ’80s with books, DVDs and training courses around the world, founded by Françoise Freedman, a medical anthropologist and yoga teacher. This […]
BABY YOGA? You must be joking, how on earth can babies do yoga? Surely this is unnatural and dangerous, one of these yoga fads that discredits yoga as a reputable ancient practice brought to the West by famous Gurus after years in their Himalayan caves. Babies are not on ascetics’ […]
(by Gill Bann, Birthlight Baby Swimming Tutor) I have two passions in my life Yoga and Gardening and when teaching pregnancy yoga valuing the physical and emotional nurturing for pregnancy, birthing and beyond comes dear to my heart. In yoga Nidra practice we learn to sow the seed of change, […]
In the mid 1990’s, I was a children’s nurse in Birmingham, running a baby ward. Although I loved the children and families, I was disillusioned with the bureaucratic behemoth that was the NHS. I decided a change of direction was required. Having already developed a love of aromatherapy, I was […]
Mary Freedman spoke with Mara and Natalia about their experience of Birthlight Aquanatal Yoga classes with Birthlight’s founder Françoise Freedman. Mara attended sessions throughout her first pregnancy while Natalia, in her second pregnancy and hoping for a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean), joined them for two sessions towards the middle […]
In this post from our archives Françoise shares some of the experiences that led her to develop Aqua Yoga. As far as I can remember, water was where I felt happiest, carefree and connected to life in the most cosmic way. My very first Aqua Yoga move was rolling […]
Le baby yoga de Birthlight arrive en France! C’est avec un grand plaisir que nous annonçons l’arrivée de la formation Birthlight en Baby Yoga à Paris en juin 2023 Le baby yoga, c’est quoi? C’est une pratique douce et accessible inspirée des principes de yoga et de techniques corporelles et […]
25 years ago Françoise’s Baby Yoga classes were in full swing and in December that year The Daily Telegraph published an article introducing the public to the benefits and fun of this new type of class even if at the time “Baby Yoga classes may sound like something from the […]
Birthlight would like to announce it’s collaboration with Aqua Education Academy. Each member of the collaboration will bring together their experiences as qualified Therapists and Practicioners in the Early Years world to help transform the understanding and importance of the early water experiences for babies and their families. If you […]
Aquatic Nurture for Newborns. A long history of development since the 1990s. Training courses since 2018. Aquatic Nurture provides the missing bridge between Aquanatal Yoga and Baby Swimming classes. As befits the ‘Fourth Trimester’, the first twelve weeks after birth, the focus is on Nurture, welcoming and cherishing the newborn in the world as […]
From the start of Birthlight classes, the changing bodies of pregnant women who were mostly new to yoga called for a dynamic approach to stretching to make space for the growing babies inside. We used the breath, mostly the exhalation, to extend the muscles below, above and to the sides […]
Birthlight Swimming classes aim to provide the optimum environment for not only learning to take place but to create deep emotional and loving connections between the parent and child. Water itself is a great conductor of emotions, it transmits both positive and negative intent and can set the tone of […]
Early Days My baby-swimming journey started with the birth of my eldest daughter in 1975. I had some time between her birth and returning with her to my work in the Amazon. I needed to get her used to being in the water, crossing rivers with me and playing in […]
The fertility journey can be an emotional roller coaster. When women come into the yoga space for a fertility workshop there is usually a mixed feel in the room. As a teacher I’m aware that fertility yoga is not a celebration, like pregnancy yoga can be, nor should it be […]