How to Become a Prenatal Yoga Teacher
If you're a yoga teacher who wants to work with pregnant students — or you've already had a pregnant student show up in your class and realized you weren't prepared — becoming a Registered Prenatal Yoga Teacher (RPYT) is the most credible, thorough path available.
Here's exactly what that path looks like.
What is an RPYT?
RPYT stands for Registered Prenatal Yoga Teacher. It's a specialty credential awarded by Yoga Alliance that designates you as a trained, qualified prenatal yoga teacher. It sits alongside your 200-hour or 500-hour RYT credential and tells studios, healthcare providers, and pregnant students that you've completed a rigorous, vetted education in the prenatal and postnatal space.
It's not just a certificate. It's a globally recognized credential that lives on your Yoga Alliance profile and follows you throughout your teaching career.
Step 1: Understand the RYT 200 requirement
To register your RPYT credential directly with Yoga Alliance, you'll need to hold at least a 200-hour yoga teacher certification (RYT 200) registered with Yoga Alliance. That said, you don't need to have it before you start your prenatal training — you can complete your 85-hour RPYT course first and earn your RYT 200 afterward.
What matters is that by the time you go to register your RPYT with Yoga Alliance, both credentials are in place. So if you're early in your yoga teaching journey and prenatal yoga is where your heart is, you can absolutely start your RPYT training now — just know that your RYT 200 will need to be completed before you can officially register the credential.
If you already hold your RYT 200, you're ready to move straight to the next step.
Step 2: Choose an RPYS — a Registered Prenatal Yoga School
This is the step most people skip research on, and it's the most important one.
Not all prenatal yoga trainings are equal. In fact, anyone can create a prenatal yoga course, call it a certification, and charge for it — without any oversight, standards, or review. That means the market is full of weekend workshops and 20-hour courses that will give you a certificate but won't make you eligible for the RPYT credential.
To become an RPYT, you must complete your training at a school that holds the RPYS designation — Registered Prenatal Yoga School. This is Yoga Alliance's designation for training programs that have been reviewed, vetted, and approved to offer RPYT-qualifying education.
Before you enroll anywhere, verify the school is listed in Yoga Alliance's registered schools directory. If they're not there, they're not RPYS registered — regardless of what their sales page says.
What to look for in an RPYS program:
A minimum of 85 hours and the logo “RPYS” on the website
A lead trainer who holds both E-RYT 500 and RPYT credentials
Curriculum that covers prenatal anatomy and physiology, trimester-specific sequencing, contraindications, breathwork, labor preparation, and postnatal yoga
A structured approach to teaching methodology — not just poses, but how to teach and cue safely
Step 3: Complete the 85-hour training
The RPYT requires a minimum of 85 training hours. This is where you'll spend the bulk of your time and energy — and where the real education happens.
A thorough 85-hour RPYT training will cover:
Prenatal anatomy and physiology — what's actually happening in the body during each trimester, the hormonal shifts, the musculoskeletal changes, and how they affect a yoga practice.
Trimester-by-trimester sequencing — what's appropriate in the first trimester looks very different from the third. You'll learn how to teach safely across the full arc of pregnancy.
Contraindications — which poses, cues, and practices to avoid during pregnancy and why. This includes not just physical poses but breathwork, inversions, and core work.
Labor preparation — how yoga can support a pregnant student as she moves toward birth, including positions, breathwork, and nervous system regulation.
Postnatal yoga — the postpartum period is often overlooked in prenatal trainings. A strong RPYS program will give you tools for supporting students after birth too.
Teaching methodology — how to work with pregnant students in a group class setting, how to conduct a prenatal intake, when to refer to a healthcare provider, and how to adapt for individual needs.
Step 4: Log your teaching hours
After completing your 85-hour training, Yoga Alliance requires you to log 30 hours of prenatal yoga teaching experience before you can register for the RPYT credential.
These hours need to be taught as prenatal or postnatal classes. This is where the real learning deepens — taking everything you studied in your training and putting it into practice with real students in real classes.
A few ways to start accumulating those hours:
Offer private 1:1 prenatal sessions to students in your existing community
Add a prenatal yoga class to your current teaching schedule
Partner with a local birth center, midwifery practice, or OB office to offer classes to their patients
Step 5: Register your RPYT with Yoga Alliance
Once you've completed your 85-hour training and logged your 30 teaching hours, you're ready to officially register your RPYT credential with Yoga Alliance.
Log into your Yoga Alliance account, navigate to your profile, and submit your application with documentation from your training school confirming your completion. Yoga Alliance will review and approve your application, and your RPYT credential will appear on your public profile.
From there, add it everywhere — your Instagram bio, your website, your email signature. It's a credential worth showing off.
How long does it take?
The timeline varies depending on how you approach the training and how quickly you accumulate your teaching hours.
The 85-hour training itself can be completed in as little as a few weeks in an intensive format, or over several weeks or months in a self-paced online program. The 30 teaching hours typically take anywhere from a few months to a year depending on how many students you have access to.
Most teachers complete the full process — training plus teaching hours plus registration — within three to six months.
Is it worth it?
The short answer: YES!!
Pregnant students are walking into yoga classes every day. Most yoga teachers aren't prepared for them. The RPYT gives you the education, the tools, and the credential to serve that population well — and to build a specialty that sets you apart in a crowded market.
It also opens doors that a general yoga certification doesn't. Studios, birth centers, hospitals, and healthcare providers are increasingly looking for RPYT-credentialed teachers. Private prenatal clients tend to be highly motivated, committed, and willing to invest in quality instruction. And the postnatal population — new mothers navigating recovery and looking to reconnect with their bodies — is just as underserved.
If you've been thinking about specializing in prenatal yoga, the RPYT path is how you do it with credibility and depth.
Island Prenatal Yoga is a Yoga Alliance Registered Prenatal Yoga School (RPYS) offering an 85-hour RPYT certification online and in person. I've been teaching prenatal yoga since 2017 and have trained 850+ teachers across 40+ countries. If you're ready to start the path to your RPYT, you can learn more and apply here.
Lauren Prindiville is the founder of Island Prenatal Yoga, a Yoga Alliance Registered Prenatal Yoga School (RPYS). She holds the RPYT, E-RYT 500, RPYS, and YACEP credentials and has been teaching prenatal yoga since 2017.