Thirty-six weeks pregnant, Elissa Lash is practicing yoga, as she will continue to do until she delivers her second child. The difference is that now on the mats alongside her each Monday evening are other women with swelling bellies, all able, again, to have this hour and a half of prenatal yoga at absolutely no charge.

Certified prenatal yoga instructor Sherry Sidoti has offered classes for pregnant women and new mothers on the Vineyard for years. Mrs. Sidoti teaches a program calls Mamaste (prenatal, as well as mother and baby yoga classes), and for a long time she offered them for a month every few months thanks to funding from Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. But such funding dried up more than a year ago.

Ms. Lash, also certified to teach prenatal and other yoga, noticed the recession hitting yoga classes broadly.

“I was teaching at the Mansion House and noticed that as the economy went down, so were the number of people attending the classes,” said Ms. Lash. As she ran into former yoga students around town, she learned that often the reason they’d stopped practice was someone in the family had lost a job, or had less work, or had taken a pay cut.

Mrs. Sidoti and Ms. Lash didn’t like the idea that the benefits of yoga were lost just when they are needed most. “Self-care, especially when you are pregnant, shouldn’t be a luxury,” said Ms. Lash. For pregnant women with other children, a yoga class might be the only time they have to connect with the baby they are carrying; “An hour class can feel like such an oasis,” she said. For a first-time mother, the changes in her body can be scary, or frightening, or just taxing, and a yoga class can bring physical comfort as well as a community of other women experiencing the same things.

“The wonderful thing about pregnancy,” said Mrs. Sidoti, “is that it’s a time when you really connect deeply inward, and that’s what yoga is, too. So pregnant women, even if they are people who wouldn’t normally do yoga, get the yoga thing right away.” It was while pregnant with her son Miles, now a second grader, that Mrs. Sidoti began her own enduring study of yoga.

The two instructors found an anonymous donor who offered to underwrite the free prenatal yoga classes and the purchase of new mats, blankets, bolsters and pillows as well as use of the common room at Island Cohousing in West Tisbury, all under the auspices of the Martha’s Vineyard YMCA. The grant is for 45 weeks of free classes.

Ms. Lash and Mrs. Sidoti also are working with the donor and the hospital to devise a postpartum support and outreach service for mothers, where in the first few weeks parents could have their questions answered by an infant development specialist and lactation consultant. The service, which would be located at the hospital, would aim to address needs not otherwise served by programs available at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Services Family Center, according to Ms. Lash.

The postpartum service is still in development, but the free prenatal yoga classes are underway Mondays from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Island Cohousing in West Tisbury. Mrs. Sidoti, from Fly Yoga, and Ms. Lash, from Om Body, both teach. Classes begin with the instructors checking in with each participant, to be aware of any injuries or concerns. They can adapt yoga postures, so that women of any fitness level or stage of pregnancy can enjoy the benefits. Classes are not designed to be too strenuous but rather to gently stretch muscles already loosened by the hormone relaxin; to ease lower back, pelvic or joint pain; and to practice breathing techniques that can help during delivery. The class finishes with guided relaxation, which may include visualization about labor, the baby or the pregnant body.

Doctors often recommend yoga, as well as gentle cardiovascular exercise such as swimming or walking, to pregnant women as exercise to help prepare their bodies for labor and delivery. “This is about helping your body be supple and flexible in a safe way during pregnancy,” Ms. Lash said, “and about connecting with other women and your own well-being.”

Moira Silva attended the prenatal classes before delivering her baby boy this month. “Pregnant women are often inundated with stress . . . a list of foods and activities to avoid, a longer list of things we must read/learn about, an even longer list of essential items we must buy . . . on top of feeling less than great physically,” she wrote in an e-mail. She called the prenatal yoga class a retreat and “a chance to savor my pregnancy, keep up with my fitness and make important friendships with other new moms.”

Caitlin Cook and Elissa Lash. — Sally Cohn

Although attendance has surged already since the classes became free, the instructors want women who may never have considered doing yoga to know they are welcome; women of any fitness level, immigrant women, washashores and lifelong Vineyarders. That includes women who have no idea where Island Cohousing is — call them, and they will meet you somewhere to guide you to the West Tisbury space for the first time. Sherry Sidoti is at 774-238-0176 and Elissa Lash is at 646-246-6386.