Before, during and after pregnancy, regular physical activity plays a key role in every woman’s wellness plan. Your doctor will suggest that you exercise regularly at a level that is safe for you and the baby. Ask your doctor to recommend some activities that would be safe for you.
Walking, cycling and swimming are often good choices during pregnancy. Walking is usually the easiest type of exercise when you are pregnant, but swimming or other exercises you enjoy are also beneficial. Everyday activities such as housework and gardening also count.
Why is exercise important?
Exercising during pregnancy is important as it has a lot of benefits. Exercising during pregnancy helps your body in many ways:
• It relieves the basic discomforts of pregnancy, from morning sickness to constipation to achy legs and backs, muscle cramps, swelling and sleeping trouble.
• The earlier in pregnancy a woman gets regular exercise, the more comfortable she is likely to feel throughout the 40 weeks.
• Regular exercise may even make for shorter labor.
• Exercise can also help get you in shape for the hard work of labor and delivery.
• Keeps your muscles in shape.
• It keeps your heart strong.
So you should exercise if you’re in good health and not at risk for obstetrical or medical complications. However, you should avoid superstrenuous activity.
When pregnant women should not exercise
If you have any of the following conditions you better not work out, at least until you discuss the situation with your doctor:
• Bleeding
• Incompetent cervix
• Intrauterine growth restriction
• Low volume of amniotic fluid
• Placenta previa (late in pregnancy)
• Pregnancy-induced hypertension
• Premature labor or preterm rupture of the membranes
• Triplets or more
Exercising without overdoing it
Keep in mind the basic rules for working out during pregnancy:
• You do need to be careful about how you exercise. Aim for moderately vigorous exercise on most days of the week. If you have a moderate exercise routine, carry on with it.
• If you’re not used to exercising or haven’t been active for a while, don’t suddenly plunge into a strenuous program, start slowly and build up gradually. Begin by exercising for 5 or 10 minutes every day so that you don’t put too much strain on your body. As you get stronger, you can increase your exercise time to 30 minutes or more per session.
• Your changing body is going to demand a change in exercise routine. Don’t beat yourself up if you find that pregnancy makes it harder to continue the workouts you’re accustomed to.
• Modify your program according to what you can reasonably tolerate.
• Remember that keeping up a regular schedule of moderate activity is better than engaging in infrequent spurts of intense exercise, which are more likely to cause injury.
• Listen to your body. If weightlifting suddenly hurts your back, lighten up.
• You may find it easier to perform non weight-bearing exercises like swimming or stationary bicycling.
• Avoid exercising flat on your back for long periods of time; doing so may reduce blood flow to your heart.
• Don’t exercise too hard or get too hot while exercising.
• Try not to overheat or become dehydrated, avoid overheating especially during the first six weeks of pregnancy.
• If you feel fatigued, dizzy, faint, or nauseous, by all means stop. On very hot or humid days, don’t exercise outdoors.
• Avoid anything that puts you at risk of being hurt in the abdomen, like road/mountain biking.
• Steer clear of high-impact, bouncy exercises that can tax your loosening joints.
• Throughout the nine months, low- or moderate-impact workouts make more sense than high-impact ones.
• Carry a bottle of water to every exercise session and stay well hydrated.
• Eat a well-balanced diet that includes an adequate supply of carbohydrates.
• Talk to your practitioner about what your peak exercise heart rate should be. Many practitioners suggest 140 beats per minute as the upper limit.
• Then regularly measure your heart rate at the peak of your workout to make sure that it’s at a safe level.
Know when to stop exercising
Stop exercising and talk to your doctor if you experience any of these symptoms:
• Shortness of breath that is persistent or out of proportion to the exercise you’re doing.
• Vaginal bleeding
• Rapid heartbeat, that is more than 140 beats per minute.
• Dizziness or feeling faint
• If your water breaks
• If you experience uterine contractions (labor pains)
• Any significant pain
Forms of exercise
When your pregnant it isn’t the time to shoot for that Ms. Fitness title, but that certainly doesn’t mean you can’t exercise.
Because your pregnant body demands you to take new precautions, choose your style of exercise carefully.
Working your heart: Aerobic exercise
Weight-bearing exercises like running, walking, aerobics and using a stair climbing machine or an elliptical trainer are great, as long as you don’t do too much. These exercises require you to support all your weight, which is ever-increasing. Because your joints are loosening and your center of gravity is shifting at the same time, you run a slightly higher risk of injuring yourself. Remember to do only what you know you can rather than setting off on a new exercise routine that is too demanding for your current state of fitness, not to mention your pregnancy.
You may find it easier, particularly later in pregnancy, to perform non weight bearing exercises. Because your weight is supported, you have less chance of injuring yourself and your joints aren’t stressed. If you’re new to exercise, a low-intensity workout in the pool or on a stationary bike is ideal.
Pilates
Pilates is a popular mind-body conditioning program focused on strengthening the core postural muscles important in maintaining your balance and supporting your spine. For the most part, continuing pilates classes while you are pregnant is safe, as long as you avoid lying flat on your back for long periods of time.
If you choose to take aerobics or pilates classes, look for those designed specifically for pregnant women. If no classes are available, talk to the instructor to find modifications for exercises that are inappropriate.
Strengthening your muscles
You won’t get a great cardiac benefit from weightlifting, yoga or body sculpting, but you can improve your muscle tone and flexibility, which comes in handy during labor and delivery.
Weightlifting machines may be preferable to using free weights because you know you won’t drop the weights onto your abdomen.
Use free weights only with caution, preferably with the help of a trainer or a skilled friend.
A trainer can also show you the proper way to exhale and inhale during lifting. Breathing well is important because it lessens the chance that you might bear down, otherwise known as the valsava maneuver, a method of increasing abdominal pressure. This can reduce blood flow, raise your blood pressure, and stress your heart. Avoid using very heavy weights, which can cause injury to your joints and ligaments.
Yoga
Yoga is a great choice for pregnant women. It is not only an excellent form of exercise, but may also be helpful in mastering breathing and relaxation techniques. Yoga is particularly useful in strengthening lower back and abdominal muscles and increasing stamina and physical endurance, all of which make you better equipped to handle the rigors of pregnancy. Across the world, yoga studios are gaining popularity, and many are offering specific classes for pregnant women.
Practicing safe yoga
Yoga is a wonderful and relaxing way to work out while you’re pregnant, but you got to be very careful. Follow these tips when doing yoga during pregnancy:
• If you’re new to yoga, take a beginner class to ease yourself into a new exercise regime.
• Be careful about positions that stretch your muscles too much. Due to elevated levels of progesterone and relaxin (hormones produced during pregnancy), you can easily overstretch your muscles and ligaments.
• When bending forward, try to bend from the hips, not from the back. Also, try to lift your chest high to avoid putting extra pressure on your abdomen.
• After the mid second trimester, try to avoid performing poses that require you to lie flat on your back for extensive periods of time, because pressure from a pregnant uterus may decrease blood return both to your heart and to the baby.
As a general rule for any exercise, if you feel any pain or discomfort, stop and rest.
Bikram yoga is a special type of yoga that is rapidly gaining popularity in the United States. It involves performing yoga in a room heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of 60 to 70 percent. Although some doctors feel that this type of yoga is safe for pregnant women during the first trimester, prolonged exposure to high temperatures during the first trimester is inadvisable, given the possible risks of causing a neural tube defect.
Pregnancy and sports
Downhill skiing, water-skiing, and horseback riding put you at risk of falling with significant impact, which could injure you or your baby. Although these kind of activities may be fine early in pregnancy, talk to your doctor before doing them especially in your second or third trimester.