Prenatal Classes

The practice of yoga during pregnancy is perhaps the most helpful exercise;
a woman with child can undertake. It is slow, strong and gentle. 
It prepares the woman's body and breath to open as it will need to open during 
labor and childbirth. Yogic techniques of breath, movement, sound and 
visualization provide a confident basis for smooth passage through this most powerful 
of life experiences. All exercises are modified for safety through to term.

Yoga is an ancient technique for improving and maintaining the health and vitality 
of body, mind and spirit. Through stretching and strengthening exercises 
joined with breathing and relaxation techniques such as guided visualization, 
yoga will relax you and build your strength, poise and confidence.

There are currently no prenatal classes at Yoga in Harvard Square. If you are interested in private or semi-private classes, please email for details or go to Private Instruction

Beginners are welcome. Wear loose, comfortable clothing. 
Please bring a yoga (sticky) mat, and, if convenient, a couch pillow.
Our state-of-the-art studio is softly sun lit with a full wall of windows, and air conditioned during the summer months. 
Relaxation is encouraged by candle light during our evening classes.

Prenatal Partner Yoga Workshops:

This workshop helps to prepare the woman with child and her labor partner for confident passage through labor and childbirth. It begins with synchronized breathing and trust-building partner yoga appropriate for women through to term. It continues with instruction in labor assists, special breathing techniques, massage, useful shiatsu points, and a special "baby's birth trip" visualization. Come prepared for an experiential workshop based on communication through breath and touch.

Schedule 2007: 

Only private and semi-private sessions are available at this time, in Cambridge and the surrounding area; $75/individual session/one hour; and $100/hour for two people, semi-private. Please email

info@yogainharvardsquare.com for further details.


Cost: $100/1 couple; $180/2 couples; $225/3 couples

Private and semi-private yoga sessions are available:

For more information go to Private Instruction

For a comprehensive list of bodyworkers & health care services, most of whom
are recommended by Portia and/or Yoga In Harvard Square students,
please go to Resource List

For more information call (617) 864-YOGA (9642).

Prenatal Yoga Delivers
By Portia Brockway

The following essay is part of an article published in Spirit of Change magazine's May/June 2001 issue.

The practice of yoga during pregnancy is perhaps the most helpful exercise a woman with child can undertake. It is slow, strong and gentle. It prepares the woman's body and breath to open as it will need to open during labor and childbirth. Yogic techniques of breath, movement, sound, and visualization provide a confident basis for smooth passage through this most powerful of life experiences.

Imagine being in labor. For months in yoga class you have been practicing deep abdominal breathing, rocking the baby forward on each inhale and hugging your child close with each exhale. Now, in the labor room, your mind wants to run away from the pain of contractions in your belly, yet over the months you have disciplined yourself to stay with the sensations. Now, internally bonded with your soon-to-be-born child, you send a "welcome to the outer world farewell to the inner world" message to your child. You may draw a circle of golden light around your baby on the inhale then send light through your baby like nectar through a sieve on the exhale. This is the power of yoga: to witness, to be with even the most painful of situations.

The mother-to-be prepares herself with yoga exercises and breathing to endure contractions, to exert in pushing, and to relax. The ability to relax between contractions is a saving grace. Rest in between keeps strength and focus at the ready for when she needs it the most. Most prenatal yoga classes have a relaxation period that cultivates calm. Here visualization techniques help to acquaint her with the growing child within. For example she may practice a color meditation, traveling the colors of the spectrum from red to purple then white, starting at the base of the spine and moving up through specified locations on the spine to the crown of the head. In yoga, these locations are called chakras from the Sanskrit word "wheel" and are associated with distinct sensations or states of consciousness. A mother-to-be may note that her baby attunes to a particular color during this experience by feeling the baby's movement within her or sensing the baby's emotional response. 

There are both colors and sounds associated with each chakra location. Perhaps in a grounded, open-pelvis squat, the practicing mother may invert the process. She may sound tones down along the chakras, descending from the crown of the head to the base of the spine. Beginning with om at the forehead to " ham" at the throat, " yam" at the heart, " ram" at the midsection, " vam" at the lower belly, she finally arrives at "lam", the sound place where the baby's head will first emerge into father, grandmother, doulah, midwife or doctor's receiving hands, then onto mother's breast, to hear that loving heart beat once again. These sounds and colors of the chakras may be used to relax and open the body progressively to release the baby out.

In India it used to be said (and perhaps still is) that the mother could sense the baby's sex by the third month of pregnancy. The practice of yoga encourages the mother to trust her intuitions, to acknowledge and release her fears, to express through her body what words cannot say. She may, during moments of deep relaxation after an invigorating yoga session feel her baby communicate with her, reassure her, share the untold bliss that only a fully-supported being in an edgeless womb of a universe can experience - with her. For even preverbal love is a two-way street.

Prenatal Yoga Experience with Portia Brockway
By Lucy Pedlar

The prenatal classes I took while carrying my older daughter were held once a week in a church hall in Harvard Square and led by Portia Brockway, a yoga teacher whose classes (not prenatal) I had attended for a year or so before I became pregnant.

Portia guided us through gentle movements, many that were specifically designed to focus the mind on our growing abdomens and the new life within. She had a way of helping us to connect with the baby both through the exercises and her imaginative descriptions of what the baby was doing, what it might be feeling and how joyous an experience being pregnant could be. This time provided a weekly respite where we could slow down, breathe deeply and focus on our babies. Whenever I left her classes I carried with me lovely vivid images of my baby.

The classes not only provided deep physical relaxation, an obvious benefit to both mother and child, but I always felt so positive and good about being pregnant after attending the class. Portia spoke of our babies with such affection and warmth, even though they had not known any of us pregnant women for long. She made me glad to be pregnant even when I was having sleepless nights, soreness and nausea. The yoga had the effect of erasing (at least while in class and often for longer) the day-to-day trials of modern life and never failed to clear my mind so that I could concentrate completely on my baby.

Although I am sure that yoga had a positive effect on my baby while in utero I do wonder if yoga has had a permanent effect on her character. It would be impossible to prove but she is calm and appears contented much of the time. I can tell that she has a peaceful sense of herself. Maybe it is just that the yoga has helped me to remain calm with my daughter and so it rubs off on her.

Finally, the classes were an opportunity to talk to other women who were pregnant, share similar concerns and fears, and for that short time we were together, have some sense of common purpose.

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"For good health and high spirits!"
Yoga in Harvard Square
Since 1993

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