McClatchy photo/Santa Cruz Sentinel

Jessica Gallione gives a tender kiss to her 10-week old daughter Coralia during Momma and Baby yoga class.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. Babies can be good yoga partners. Just ask the folks at Pacific Cultural Centers Ashtanga Yoga Institute.

Babies live in the present moment, are flexible and like to stretch. But the Mama & Baby Yoga classes are really for the moms.

One or two volunteers attend, holding and distracting the little ones who have had their fill of a quiet yoga practice, allowing their moms to continue with the asanas, or poses.

Hannah Muse and Treea Clements teach the classes two days a week.

A mother of two, Clements said she started teaching postnatal yoga in 2005 and taught prenatal yoga before that. She said she includes a check-in time for moms to talk about what they might be dealing with as new parents.

The women really bond, she said. We are all coming in to spiritually center and ground ourselves and to bring our bodies back to strength, flexibility and health. It includes some powerful inner stuff.

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Mom and baby yoga class offers peaceful energy