I just thought I’d let you know that my daughter-in-law Kellie Durham is 7 months pregnant and has been using your breathing techniques from your book for easing her early small contractions pains. She expects the breathing knowledge will be of even more help to her as the pregnancy progresses and pain increases. She said they are much more effective than the Lamaze breathing recommendations. I thought perhaps you could give Lamaze some competition, (monopoly game style), and write a book focusing on pregnancy issues and benefits of the Yoga breathing, maybe utilize a special name for the procedures and develop specific sequence of breathing for the contraction pains.
There would certainly be a big receptive potential market that would be beneficial to lots of mothers-to-be. I think the Lamaze breathing helped John keep from fainting as much as it helped me out during labor. Perhaps there can be some suggestions for the dads-to-be also. Thank you for choosing the healing profession and sharing your talents with us. In family Love, N
Aunt Nellie - good to hear from you again. There are plenty of applications for yoga to be of help to people. I once helped a friend with last hours prior to giving birth to her first child at age 43. I taught her to do a special yoga breathing that is most beneficial at that stage of pregnancy. It consists of long exhales with a feeling of relaxation in the lower abdomen and pelvis then a brief pause before the inhalation. This is called apana prana breathing. It worked wonders she did it all night and got quite relaxed so that when she was ready to call for ride to the hospital she was ready to deliver. In fact she gave birth less than an hour after arrival at the hospital. You might tell Kellie of this variation for the final stages as it promotes relaxation of the pelvic floor musculature to facilitate ease of delivery.
As for another book, I find I have plenty of writing yet to do. I am focused on bringing out the major practices of breathing and mental training from Classical Yoga that have largely been ignored. When students understand the principles of Classical Yoga they can see the specific applications as you are citing here. Also I plan to share the information on this forum with a larger group of people in the near future. Blessings Tom