Sometimes, doing something that one would expect to confer benefits can pose risks as well, particularly if the practice has not been performed properly. Even a small mistake could potentially cause a major injury, and when it comes to babies, you want to ensure that you take the utmost care to avoid any potential injuries. Sadly, during any kind of baby exercise, you are going to have the potential that an injury may be incurred in the process. In this article, we will discuss the kinds of injuries that a baby may experience during baby yoga exercise and how to avoid them.
Baby yoga exercise related injuries
Babies are particularly sensitive, as they are still developing. They are more prone to bruising, their bones are weaker, and babies are not going to be as able to detect and convey when an injury occurs. As such, when you are doing any form of exercise involving a baby, you must make sure that you have taken all the necessary precautions to ensure that your baby can get all the benefits of the exercise, yoga included, without having to worry about any of the potential drawbacks you may run into. It’s important to help your babies get some exercise and movement, but precautions are important. One of the benefits is that baby yoga exercise can create a solid opportunity to experience a parent-child bond, something for the two of you to do together. It also helps your baby improve their motor skills, which is quite important during their young developing ages. Such exercise, aided by a parent, can do a world of good to stimulate their muscle and nerve development, both of which are obviously quite important. One thing to note, however, is that while yoga does create the opportunity for you and your child to bond, and that it helps them in their physical development, it should not be taken as a given that it is the only, or even necessarily the best, option to pursue for these things. Other forms of exercise can also create these benefits. There is one advantage that baby yoga exercises that may not be present for certain other exercises, however; similar to massage, there is research to suggest that babies may benefit from the stimulation of pressure receptors reduces the production of stress hormones.
A reduction in stress hormones may see your baby feeling better, but your reduction of stress hormones may also help them out. Obviously, you will need to be able to get your own yoga time in, so you can stimulate your own muscles and nerves, but it will be well worth it. Research shows that babies are able to recognize what their parents are feeling to a certain extent, and that level of stress in you may rub off on them. As such, you may have a sleepless night where you have to take care of your kid and having that extra bit of stress in you may see your child being that much more difficult to calm down. Hopefully, going through baby yoga exercises will help keep things calm. Heck, it may also be a good way to meet other parents who are also bring their babies to these classes.
One big issue that you need to be mindful of is that there are people who overstate the kind of benefits that you can get out of baby yoga exercises. For example, it has been argued that baby yoga exercises can improve a child’s sleep, bowel health, and even their immune system. The latter comes from a bit of truth; however, infants get so little exercise relative to how much the benefit exists for older people that the babies will not experience a change in the quality of their immune system. This does not inherently mean that the benefits, such as sleep and bowel health, are automatically not true, but the research is of such low quality and so inconclusive that one should not do baby yoga exercises with the understanding that these are the benefits you’ll get out of it.
Now, the actual process of baby yoga exercises often involves specific exercises, ones that should only be done after researching them and consulting experts on the subject. It involves at times manipulation of their limbs, such as gently rotating their thighs. Their limbs are certainly sensitive, so you must take the utmost care that you do not rotate them further or more harshly than they are able to handle. You should also take baby yoga quite slowly; after all, there is no rush to finish it, and your baby will benefit from the patience that you demonstrate in aiding them in these exercises. You should also ensure that when you participate in baby yoga exercise, you are keeping your baby’s head adequately supported, as babies are not very capable of controlling their head at a very young age. A baby younger than 6 months is certainly going to need help supporting their head. Some babies are also more or less receptive to baby yoga exercises than others, such as the five percent of babies who are born with hypermobile or right joints. If you do not take care, you may find yourself overstretching your baby’s limbs to a degree that a different baby may have been able to handle, but this baby is not. Also, do not engage in baby yoga exercises for too long a time, no longer than 15 to 20 minutes in length.
A consistent regiment of yoga at a young age may also lead into more yoga in the future, if that is something you hope to do with your child for years to come. Such an experience may confer a strong bond between you and your child, one that lasts much longer than just in their infancy.
All too often, people do not realize just how sensitive babies truly are. Either they allow their baby to engage in baby yoga exercises for too long, or the engagement is simply too intense for them. Always make sure that you do not engage in anything you do not understand in full. If you do not take care with exercises involving your baby, and it leads to your baby sustaining injuries, it may see you held liable for reckless behavior putting your child at risk. If your baby experienced exercise related injuries due to the neglect of someone else during a baby exercise, including yoga, you may be well advised to consult with attorneys at Wapner Newman to see if you have a solid case to pursue damages.
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