Kegel Exercises

This exercise is good for everybody (men & women), not just for those of us who are getting pregnant, but it seems to be specially beneficial when planning to become pregnant, or if you're already past that stage, for strengthening your pelvic muscles after pregnancy.

Here's a quick description of what kegel exercises are:

Start with an empty bladder. Imagine that you're trying to stop yourself from passing gas and trying to stop the flow of urine midstream at the same time. The feeling is one of "squeeze and lift" – a closing and drawing up of the front and back passages.

Doing this exercise has a bunch of benefits, but the one most related to pregnancy is: it helps to prevent and treat urinary stress incontinence (aka involuntary wee when you sneeze), especially if your pelvic floor muscles have been weakened due to pregnancy or delivering your baby naturally.

It's also said that kegel exercises assist in making natual delivery easier, as well as controlling hemorrhoids! Cool.

Beginning these exercises before pregnancy could help to prevent or lessen the effects of urinary stress incontinence during the pregnancy, so start doing them as soon as you decide to try for a baby!  I do them everyday while blow-drying my hair - I like multi-tasking where I can.

You should ideally do them in all 3 positions, ie when standing, sitting and lying down.  In the interests of saving some space here (and not at  ALL because I'm lazy...ahem) I'm just posting 3 informative links below discussing kegels in more detail and how to do them:

Kegel Exercises 1
Kegel Exercises 2
Kegel Exercises 3