About

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Our Mission

The mission of OmMama, LLC, is to provide exceptional pre- and post-natal yoga and childbirth education classes for women and families in their childbearing years, and to offer topnotch, comprehensive training for the teachers who serve them.

We believe that childbirth is a transformative event in women's lives that affects families, communities, and the larger culture. All women should have access to respectful, compassionate prenatal and postpartum services and support that promote the best possible outcomes for mothers and babies.

Instructors

Leslie Lytle
Founder/Director

Leslie Lytle first began working in complementary health care in 1982, when she took a part-time job as a massage practitioner at the University of Texas at Austin. Financing her way through college, the job quickly became the cornerstone of a career in movement and bodywork. Her coursework shifted to anatomy and physiology, balanced by dance and movement classes. After moving to Richmond Virginia, she co-founded Movement Resources, Inc., Richmond’s first group massage therapy and movement re-education practice in 1986. Her passion for pregnancy and birth began in 1992, when she completed a certification in perinatal massage, and deepened with the natural birth of her son in 1996. As Coordinator of Somatic Therapies and Education at the Mind Body Medicine Center at Retreat Hospital, she developed innovative pilot programs that incorporated massage therapy into in-patient settings, including an in-patient postpartum massage program. In 1999, she trained as a doula through the Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators, and has been privileged to attend numerous births. Leslie directed the prenatal/postnatal yoga program at Yoga Source, in Richmond, Virginia from 2001 to 2008. A Certified Laban Movement Analyst and Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT200) with Yoga Alliance, she holds a bachelor's degree in Movement Studies and a master’s in Sociology, where her area of interest was women's experience of the body and health.

In her classes and in her teaching, Leslie combines a background in Iyengar-style yoga and vipassana meditation with imagery, poetry, and a deep understanding of the experience of pregnancy and birth. She has studied with and continues to learn from teachers such as Roger Cole, Donna Farhi, Gabriel Halpern, Elise Browning Miller, and Eric Small. She has completed advanced training in Prenatal Yoga with Janice Clarfield and Colette Crawford, instructor training in Prenatal/Postpartum Exercise with Elizabeth Noble, and is certified as a Pre/Postnatal Health and Fitness Instructor with Dancing Thru Pregnancy® Inc. Leslie brings to her yoga classes a love of movement, an eye for alignment, and a deep respect for the body's inherent wisdom.

Mary Jo Lowery

Mary Jo Lowery began her exploration of yoga more than twenty years ago. Diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1996, she tried a number of conventional and alternative therapies, then found that a regular yoga practice restored her health and brought balance and self-healing to her life. Certified through Integral Yoga, with additional studies in a variety of traditions, Mary Jo holds certifications in Yoga for Children and Prenatal and Postpartum Yoga. She was a pilot teacher for the American Arthritis Association's Arthritis Friendly Yoga program. Mary Jo’s classes integrate principles from her Stott Pilates teacher training, including emphasis on core strength and stability. She is an experienced doula, trained by Penny Simpkin of the Doulas of North America, and teaches childbirth education through the Bon Secour Richmond Health System.