Stretching & Pregnancy

Keeping fit during pregnancy is now known to be highly beneficial for the health of both mother and baby. However, many women remain at work during pregnancy so finding time for regular exercise can be difficult.

Stretching & Pregnancy, by bestselling fitness author and practitioner Kit Laughlin, and featuring senior teacher Jennifer Cristaudo, will show you how to gently develop and maintain your fitness at home. It also provides breathing and relaxation exercises as well as a healthy eating plan.

Illustrated throughout with step-by-step photographs and filled with valuable information, Stretching & Pregnancy includes:

• 25 prenatal stretching exercises, which can be done easily at home. These gentle exercises will help you towards an easier childbirth as they loosen hips, relax lower back muscles and contribute generally to your wellbeing. All you need is floor space, a chair and a few minutes, two or three times a week.

• Effective, easy-to-learn breathing and relaxation techniques, which Kit Laughlin has taught to thousands of women with great results.

• Pelvic floor exercises, which have many benefits before and after childbirth. Also included are trunk- and abdominal-strengthening exercises to help maintain your posture, alleviate post-partum lower back pain and regain your figure as quickly as possible after the birth.

• The 'sensible eating' plan. Using this approach will maximise nutrition for you and your baby, and minimise unwanted body weight. Healthy cooking tips are included, too.

  JENNIFER CRISTAUDO is a senior teacher of the Posture & Flexibility program in Canberra. She has been teaching the system in this book for more than twenty-five years. Jennifer is the mother of two children.

  KIT LAUGHLIN studied oriental medicine during a five year stay in Japan, and was the Japanese Ambassador's personal shiatsu practitioner. He was awarded a Master of Letters degree by the Science Faculty of the Australian National University in 1992. He was granted an Australian Post-Graduate Research Award for Ph.D. research in 1993. Back pain was the main case study.

  He established Posture & Flexibility, now Stretch Therapy, as a modality over the same period. The system presented in this book has been trialled, tested, and refined at the University for over 25 years, and has been taught to tens of thousands of students of all ages, with proven results.

  He presents workshops internationally on these subjects.