Yoga as an Exercise Prescription for the Pregnancy or Postpartum Period: Recent Advances and Perspective

The aim of this study is to examine studies published from 2015 to 2020 and to determine whether yoga can be an efficacious approach during the pregnancy or postpartum period. PubMed, EBSCO, Wiley and Science Direct databases were searched for studies published from January 2015 to June 2020. A total of 14 studies met the inclusion criteria, covering 1116 participants were identified. The results demonstrated that yoga intervention could significantly reduce depression (P < 0.001), anxiety (P = 0.003), labor pain (P = 0.001), back pain and the percentage of cesarean section (P = 0.002). There was significant improvement in psychological well-being (P < 0.5), immune function and the intrauterine fetal growth (P < 0.5). Moreover, the yoga intervention group has lower salivary cortisol (P < 0.001), salivary alpha-amylase and salivary a-amylase levels (P < 0.5) and higher immunoglobulin A (P < 0.001) levels when compared with that in control groups. The findings suggested that yoga is well benefited for either pregnant women or postpartum women. More high-quality and well-controlled randomized controlled trials are required to provide more information regarding the utility of yoga interventions for different stages of pregnancy women.