That was really great to watch! Thank you.
And Thanks again to everyone who replied to this post, I showed all of the comments to my friend and she thought it was wonderful to get all of these opinions and to see that other women have done this before her, I think it made her more comfortable with the idea of dancing and being pregnant.

Yeah - that was Wendi - of the pregger belly icon above. :) Oh, and she ahd the baby on the 4th!

I am a qualified nurse, fitness instructor and dance teacher. I believe that belly dance has some great benefits during pregnancy and have read lots of anecdotal evidence to support this. I tried very hard, when I first started teaching 5 years ago and since, to find studies, research on this topic. I contacted an obstetrician in the US who mentioned bellydance on a website. She didn't know of any studies, neither does anyone I've contacted.

The advice when I did my fitness instructors course was this...Miscarriages are sadly fairly common during the first 3 months of a pregnancy. Part of the normal grieving process is for women to look for reasons why these things happen, although most times there's no reason, nothing that anyone's done wrong. The problem is (and I have experience of this from working on Gynae wards) that women often blame themselves or others when they have lost a baby. If only hadn't ....! For this reason we were advised not to allow newly pregnant women to join an aerobics class, if they hadn't already been attending.

I would really like to teach pregnant women but I have been very wary in the absence of research. I advise women, who become pregnant while coming to classes, to check with their midwife or doctor and bring a letter to say that it's okay to continue. This has happened about three times now and, to date, no one has come back with a letter. All three mums have waited 'til they've had babies and then returned.

If anyone ever hears of any research or studies being carried out, I would love to hear about it and would glady get involved to assist anyone who's planning a study.

Lindsey I'd love to come and learn from you when you're ready.

In the meantime I think pregnant dancers need to find out as much as they can. Make sure they've got a properly trained teacher and listen to their bodies. To dance teachers I'd recommend extreme caution, especially if you have no training. You don't know how little you know 'til you start to find out...if that makes sense. Im agine how you would feel if a woman miscarried oir injured herself. Could you be 100% sure it wasn't down to the dancing?

I have leant this DVD to two of my students to use. They found it most helpful.

Belly Dance Prenatal Fitness with Naia. Naia developed the DVD witha nurse practioner and midwife. It's easily available from Amazon


Donna xx
www.pedralta.com