What a prenatal and postnatal yoga certification covers
A prenatal and postnatal yoga certification trains a yoga teacher to adapt practice for pregnancy and the months after birth: how the body changes by trimester, which shapes to modify or avoid, breathing, and how recovery after birth shapes the return to movement. It is a teaching qualification, not a medical one, and it never replaces your OB or midwife.
I am certified in prenatal and postnatal (postpartum) yoga through Doula School International. I did that training after my 200-hour course. Pregnancy and the months after birth ask for a different kind of attention from a teacher, and this is the training for it.
This page explains what a certification like mine covers, using the topics Doula School International publishes for its prenatal and postnatal yoga teacher trainings, and why that matters to you as a student. If you are pregnant and thinking about a lesson, prenatal lessons at your home explains how they run, and more about me and my training is on the About page.
What is Doula School International?
Doula School International trains doulas and yoga teachers who work with pregnancy and birth. It describes itself as an educational institution, and it runs courses in person in several countries and online. Alongside its doula courses, it offers yoga teacher trainings for pregnancy and for the months after birth.
What does the prenatal part cover?
The school’s prenatal yoga teacher training lists these topics:
- The stages of labour, so a teacher understands what the body is preparing for
- The anatomy of pregnancy and the pelvis
- Yoga across the trimesters: what changes from the first trimester to the third, and how practice changes with it
- Breathwork for pregnancy
- Prenatal alignment, taught posture by posture
- Designing prenatal sequences, including wall sequences
- Bringing standing poses in safely
- Hands-on assisting for prenatal yoga
- Common pregnancy discomforts and how practice can work around them
- Meditation and visualisation for pregnancy
- Modifying shapes, recognising contraindications (shapes or practices to avoid) and choosing helpful postures for each trimester
- Relaxation and visualisation to prepare for birth, and labouring positions with yoga
What does the postnatal part cover?
The school’s postnatal yoga teacher training lists these topics:
- The first six weeks after birth and beyond
- The physical and emotional needs of pregnancy and the months after
- How the body changes physically and anatomically
- An overview of perinatal mental health, including perinatal mood disorders
- Safe recovery, and rebuilding strength and flexibility
- Practice that supports the pelvic floor
- Postures for the body after childbirth, and how to modify them after a caesarean section, an episiotomy or diastasis recti
- Restorative yoga for new parents
- Breathing and sound for relaxation
- Sequencing postnatal classes
- Parent and baby yoga, including infant massage and bringing babies into the postures
Why does it matter to you as a student?
Because the right lesson in pregnancy is not an ordinary lesson made gentler. It is planned around where you are.
In practice, that means I ask how far along you are, and what your OB or midwife has said, before we begin. I change shapes as your body changes, and I leave out the ones that do not suit the stage you are in. The page on prenatal poses trimester by trimester shows what that looks like.
After birth, it means I do not hurry you. Recovery after a vaginal birth and after a caesarean are different, and both take time. Postpartum lessons start only after your OB or midwife has cleared you to exercise, and the first ones are slow and mostly on the floor. If you are still in the early weeks, the postpartum recovery guide is a better place to start than any lesson.
It also means knowing the edge of the role. The overview of perinatal mental health in a postnatal curriculum is there so a teacher recognises when someone needs more than yoga, not so she can treat it.
What does the certification not make me?
- Not a doctor, midwife or physiotherapist. I do not assess, diagnose or treat anything, and a lesson is never medical care.
- Not a replacement for your OB or midwife. They decide whether exercise is right for you. I work inside what they have said.
- Not a pelvic floor or diastasis specialist. If you have pelvic pain, leaking, heaviness or a gap in your abdominal wall that worries you, a women’s health physiotherapist is the right person.
Before you start
If you are pregnant, check with your OB or midwife before any exercise, including yoga. After birth, wait until they have cleared you. Stop and contact them straight away if you have bleeding, fluid leaking, pain in the belly or pelvis, dizziness, chest pain, a severe headache, or fewer movements from your baby. The health disclaimer for yoga lessons sets out what a lesson is and is not.
Practising with me
I teach prenatal and postpartum lessons at your home or condo across Metro Manila. When the time is right, lessons in the months after birth pick up where prenatal lessons leave off. Message me on Viber with how far along you are, or how many weeks since your baby arrived.
Source
The course topics on this page come from Doula School International’s own course pages, read on 1 October 2026: the prenatal and postnatal yoga teacher training, the 85-hour virtual prenatal yoga and doula training (the prenatal curriculum, linked from the school’s home page) and the postnatal yoga teacher training. Course content can change; the school’s pages are the current word.