Prenatal bellydance video reviews

[atisheh]

Congratulations! Hope you are all doing well. Is this the first bellydanced baby on the forum?

There was a woman in my tap-dance class who was still tapping away well into her third trimester. Gave us all panic attacks when she kept turning up. But all things fine, and she brought the baby back to class as soon as she could. The little adorable would sleep in a cot on the floor throughout all the music, floor shaking and thumping about - she must have got used to it in the womb!

Ha! I actually shimmied a lot during labour too, funnily enough, at the end of contractions. I think it relaxed my body a bit.

My entertainment these days is Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby DVD, and he points out that fetuses are shaken constantly in the womb. In fact, they tend to wake up when *we* stop moving, i.e., nights. And the womb is a noisy place, what with all the blood rushing about. So I actually think it's quite normal for babies to find noise and movement soothing.

[Amulya]

Sure, he's Max, 8 lbs 7 oz. (Name turned out to be prescient.) Turned out to be too large for me! And lord knows, after four days of back labour, three without pain relief, I can truly say I tried to give birth to him naturally.

Congratulations!

[atisheh]

An update: I gave birth a little over a month ago, and the story is here:

atisheh: dance and fitness views and reviews: Reader, I birthed him

My warning: it's more on the personal side, but I include it if anyone's interested in how things turned out with all the dance videos.

[Mosaic]

& well done going through such a long labour in the manner you did - even if you did have to make a surgical choice in the end, the choice was a necessary one for your baby's and your safety. Now just enjoy your bub!
~Mosaic

[atisheh]

& well done going through such a long labour in the manner you did - even if you did have to make a surgical choice in the end, the choice was a necessary one for your baby's and your safety. Now just enjoy your bub!
~Mosaic

Thanks, Mosaic! It did take a while to enjoy him, since he came after one of the worst experiences of my life. But you know, I now have ample material for the guilt trips I'll offer him if he becomes a difficult adolescent...

[atisheh]

Fellow dancers, since actually giving birth has not cured me of the interest in the relationship between bellydance and baby-making, I recently interviewed Sera Solstice on the topic, and also asked her about the DVD she made:

atisheh: dance and fitness views and reviews: Bellydance and Pregnancy - An Interview with Sera Solstice

Enjoy!