Women don't know how to perform exercises during pregnancy, and they don't even know how helpful the exercises are and which exercises are the most effective.

In this article, I will discuss the best pregnancy abdominal exercises that are useful for pregnant women and can be easily performed at home. They do not require any equipment like they mostly need in gyms. I will also highlight a couple of exercises that should be avoided because they can harm them and their babies.

The Best and Safe Pregnancy Abdominal Exercises

In every other observer of women in Spain, women who exercised three times per week gained much less weight during pregnancy and were much less to have macro-cosmic infants.

Women are afraid of doing any physical activity during the third trimester. Still, a moderate intensity level has no adverse effect on their health and baby. Exercises with proper guidelines help them carry a healthy and fit pregnancy.

Pelvic Floor Muscles

Let's talk about Pelvic floor muscles first; these muscles help to support the uterus muscles, bladder, intestines, and rectum. The significant benefit of pelvic floor muscles is women can recover quickly after childbirth. If your pelvic floor muscles are strong enough, you can be safe from more complications.

Now start with pelvic floor exercises like Kegel exercises and bird dogs.

Kegel Exercises

Contract your pelvic floor muscles for 5 seconds, then relax.

The question is how you can find these pelvic floor muscles; when you hold urine then, you can feel these muscles contracted.

So while performing kegel exercises, you must contract those muscles by engaging your lower abdominal and squeezing your glute muscles.

Bird Dog

It is a really important exercise to build your pelvic floor muscles.

Hands are directly under your shoulders; the distance between your knees should be according to your hand's distance; then you lift your leg and opposite hand and make sure you must engage your abdominal muscles.

Avoid jerking your leg while lifting upward, and your opposite arm should be parallel to the floor, Perform ten reps on each side.

Core Exercises

I will also recommend you add some core exercises like plank hold, side planks, and glute bridges because when you perform any core exercise, the primary muscles engage in it are the pelvic floor muscles, then the internal and external oblique, lumbar region, and lower abdominal muscles.

Elbow Plank hold

Get into the push-up position, elbows directly under the shoulders, squeeze your abdominal muscles, and hold; you should focus on the alignment of your spine; it should be parallel to the floor.

Remember that pregnant women should not hold this position for a minute; they can have 10 to 15 seconds and repeat it thrice.

Side Plank

The following exercise is this side plank, but we must modify it to make it more effective.

Usually, people perform this exercise by getting into this position, heels, hips shoulders are to be aligned with each other, but pregnant women have to modify this exercise, and they should do it as this, knees ben,d and the lift

knees bend, and then lift your hips and down

Glute Bridges

It is one of the most highly effective exercises to build your core muscles, and same if your core muscles become strengthened, your primary muscles, which are pelvic floor muscles, will become strong as well.

Lie down on the floor, hands alongside your hips, knees bent, and then lift your butts

keep in mind, avoid stressing your lower back much, and do not try to lift your butt upward

You can't perform this exercise if your pregnancy is of 20 weeks because when you lay down, it would interrupt the blood flow toward your baby. Still, the exercises I mentioned earlier, like planks, side planks, bird dog, and kegel, you can do throughout your pregnancy to build core muscles.

Exercises to Avoid During Pregnancy

Let's discuss those exercises which pregnant women should avoid.

Crunches, bicycle crunches, leg raises, crisscross, and sits ups could also be worse for you and your baby. For example, if you do crunches, you will exert too much pressure on your abdomen, which is unsuitable for your baby. Similarly, if you perform a crisscross, you put extra pressure on the lumbar region, and it is not good because pregnant women already carry their babies, which makes their lower back muscles stiff.