5 Mistakes Yoga Teachers Make When a Pregnant Student Joins Their Class
Most yoga teachers want to do the right thing when a pregnant student walks in. The problem isn't intention — it's preparation.
Your 200-hour training covered a lot of ground, but prenatal yoga is a specialty, and the gaps it leaves behind show up in real and sometimes risky ways.
Here are the five most common mistakes I see yoga teachers make — and what to do instead.
1. Continuing pranayama practices that aren’t safe during pregnancy
This is one that surprises teachers because breathwork feels gentle and low-risk. Kapalabhati, bhastrika, and kumbhaka (breath retention) are staples of many yoga classes — but all three are contraindicated during pregnancy. Forceful breathing and breath retention can restrict oxygen flow to the baby and increase intra-abdominal pressure in ways that aren’t safe.
The mistake isn’t malicious — teachers simply don’t think of pranayama as something that needs modifying. They modify the poses and forget entirely about the breath.
What to do instead: Stick to continuous, gentle breathing practices for pregnant students — nadi shodhana, sama vritti, and bhramari are all safe and deeply beneficial during pregnancy. If the rest of the class is practicing kapalabhati, give your pregnant student a gentle alternate nostril breathing practice instead.
2. Keeping supine poses in the sequence after the first trimester
Lying flat on the back — savasana, supine twists, bridge pose, happy baby — is one of the most common things yoga teachers forget to modify. It feels benign. It’s relaxing. What’s the harm?
After around 20 weeks, lying flat on the back can compress the inferior vena cava, the large vein that returns blood to the heart. This can reduce circulation to both the mother and the baby and cause dizziness, nausea, or a drop in blood pressure. Some women feel it immediately. Others don’t feel it at all — which doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
What to do instead: From the second trimester onward, prop your student into a supported semi-reclined position using a bolster or folded blankets under the upper back and head. This takes the pressure off the vena cava while still allowing her to rest and participate in floor-based poses.
3. Cueing deep core engagement
“Engage your core.” “Zip up through your center.” “Draw your navel to your spine.” These cues are everywhere in yoga, and for good reason — they’re useful for most students. But for pregnant students, deep core engagement cues can be actively harmful.
During pregnancy the abdominal muscles stretch and separate to accommodate the growing uterus. Cueing a pregnant student to engage her deep core the way you would a non-pregnant student can increase intra-abdominal pressure, worsen diastasis recti, and put unnecessary strain on the pelvic floor.
What to do instead: Shift your language to breath-based support. Cue your pregnant students to breathe into the ribcage, soften the belly, and find length through the spine rather than bracing. If a student has a known diastasis recti, avoid any poses that cause coning or doming at the midline of the abdomen.
4. Including strong twists and deep backbends without modification
Twisting poses and deep backbends are staples of most yoga classes. Teachers often modify the depth of a twist for a pregnant student but don’t change the fundamental mechanics of the pose — and that’s where the problem lies.
Deep twists compress the abdomen, which becomes increasingly uncomfortable and potentially harmful as the pregnancy progresses. Deep backbends like full wheel or camel create a strong stretch across the front of the body, which is already under significant strain from the growing belly, and can overstretch the abdominal muscles.
What to do instead: Replace closed twists with open twists — twisting away from the midline rather than across it. For backbends, focus on gentle heart-opening rather than deep lumbar extension. Supported fish, gentle cat-cow, and thread-the-needle are all safe alternatives that still give your student the opening she’s looking for.
5. Not asking any questions before class
This is the biggest one. Most yoga teachers who haven’t been trained in prenatal yoga don’t ask their pregnant students anything before class. They might offer a general “let me know if you need modifications” — but they don’t know what questions to ask, so they don’t ask them.
A pregnant student’s needs vary enormously depending on her trimester, her medical history, whether she has a high-risk pregnancy, whether she has symphysis pubis dysfunction, sciatica, diastasis recti, placenta previa, or any number of other conditions that change what’s safe for her in a yoga class.
What to do instead: Have a simple intake process for pregnant students. At minimum, ask: How many weeks are you? Is this a high-risk pregnancy? Are there any conditions or symptoms your doctor has asked you to be aware of? Has your doctor cleared you for exercise? These four questions take two minutes and give you everything you need to teach her safely. If you want a done-for-you version, my Prenatal Yoga Toolkit includes a ready-made prenatal student intake questionnaire you can use in your very next class.
If any of these landed for you — if you recognized yourself in one or more of these mistakes — you’re not alone. I hear this from teachers constantly. The gap isn’t in your commitment to your students. It’s in what your training covered.
That’s exactly why I created the 85-hour RPYT certification at Island Prenatal Yoga. It’s designed to give yoga teachers a real, thorough education in the prenatal and postnatal space — not just a weekend of highlights. If you’re ready to feel genuinely prepared, you can learn more here.
Lauren Prindiville is the founder of Island Prenatal Yoga, a Yoga Alliance Registered Prenatal Yoga School (RPYS). She has been teaching prenatal yoga since 2017 and has trained 850+ yoga teachers across 40+ countries.
This post originally appeared on The Prenatal Yoga Teacher on Substack. Subscribe for weekly resources for yoga teachers. SUBSCRIBE NOW