Pregnancy workouts help you stay healthy and feel your best. Physical activity also improves posture, reducing fatigue and backaches during pregnancy. There is evidence that it can lower stress and prevent gestational diabetes. It also gives you energy for labor and delivery.
If you exercised before getting pregnant, you can keep doing it with some adjustments. However, some exercises are not advised during pregnancy. Being aware of the differences can assist in keeping you and your developing baby safe.
Benefits of pregnancy workouts
Fitness
Exercising while pregnant has many benefits. Regular exercise is good for your heart, reduces the chance of diabetes during pregnancy, and makes you stronger with more muscles. Research indicates that pregnant women who exercise have shorter labor and easier delivery.
Exercise reduces your risk of pregnancy issues such as gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. During pregnancy, having too much glucose in your blood can lead to gestational diabetes. Some women develop preeclampsia after the 20th week of pregnancy or after giving birth. These complications can raise your chances of having difficulties during pregnancy, such as premature birth (born before 37 weeks of pregnancy).
Weight management
Weight gain during pregnancy is a normal and necessary process. However, excessive gestational weight gain (EGWG) is connected with maternal problems such as cesarean birth, hypertension, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes.
General health and psychological wellbeing
Physical activity can play a crucial role in preventing postpartum depression in women. It also helps to maintain your mental and physical well-being. Physical activity might make you feel better and give you more energy. It also strengthens your heart, lungs, and blood vessels and keeps you fit.
Best pregnancy exercise
Cardio exercise
Walking
Walking is a great workout that is safe to do throughout each trimester. Every mother can benefit from walking with good posture and at different speeds, from a brisk power walk in the first trimester to perhaps a little slower stroll in the third trimester.
Stationary cycling
Using a stationary bike while pregnant is usually considered safe for cardio. The risk of falling is much lower compared to regular biking. Ellipticals and arc trainers are safe for joints, as they have less impact than running.
Swimming
During each trimester, swimming is seen as a safe exercise for the heart. Water swimming is a great cardiovascular workout and supports joints. Swimming helps strengthen your back, arms, and legs so you can move better on land.
Stability ball exercise
One excellent addition to your prenatal exercise routine is the stability ball. You can use weights by themselves or in combination with the stability ball.
When you sit on the stability ball, it supports you and makes you use your core muscles to keep it stable. You can strengthen your arms and develop your core and back muscles by doing easy arm exercises while sitting on a stability ball.
Strength and flexibility workouts
Strength training aids in both muscular growth and maintenance. During pregnancy, your ligaments become stronger and more flexible, and your muscles support your growing weight and protect your joints. Here are the top strengthening pregnancy workouts provided that your doctor gives the go-ahead.
Pilates
Pilates builds physical strength and enhances posture, flexibility, and balance. It employs breathing techniques like yoga, which can help you unwind. It is an excellent form of exercise to engage in when pregnant because it is gentle on your joints.
Barre
Barre classes benefit pregnant women greatly. This combines Pilates, yoga, and ballet-inspired routines to strengthen the lower body and core without a lot of jumping. They also include balance training, which keeps you steady while your growing baby bump throws off the balance. Before class starts, make sure to inform your instructor that you are expecting so that they can provide you with modifications for the few activities that may put more stress on your abdomen.
Yoga
Prenatal yoga is a great exercise for pregnant women. It helps with breathing, flexibility, focus, and relaxation. These are all important for preparing for delivery. Find a pregnancy-specific yoga class, or ask your regular yoga teacher to modify the poses for you. This usually entails staying away from full inversions like handstands and headstands due to the possibility of blood pressure difficulties. Avoid Bikram (hot) yoga because you should avoid movements that cause you to overheat.
Safety tips for pregnancy workouts
How much to exercise during pregnancy
The recommended weekly amount of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise for pregnant women is 150 minutes. Aerobic activities involve rhythmic movement of the body’s major muscles, such as the arms and legs. Moving at a moderate intensity causes your heart rate to increase and causes you to start sweating. Normal speech is still permitted, but singing is not.
Simple gardening tasks like weeding, digging, and brisk walking are examples of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. You can split the 150 minutes into smaller 10-minute workouts spread out over each day, or into five 30-minute workouts on different days of the week.
Exercises to avoid during pregnancy
During pregnancy avoid activities that put you at risk of injury. These include:
- You can increase the risk of falling while doing sports like horseback riding, skiing, cycling, gymnastics, or skating.
- After the third month of pregnancy, you should avoid any exercise that requires you to lie flat on your back, such as sit-ups. Your uterus puts pressure on a vein that supplies blood to your heart while you lie on your back. Lying on your back can lower your blood pressure and reduce the amount of blood that reaches your unborn child.
- Exercising in a high-altitude zone (above 6,000 feet), unless you already live there. Height above the surface of the ground is referred to as altitude. In the mountains, for instance, if you’re at a high altitude. The amount of oxygen that reaches your baby while you exercise at high altitudes during pregnancy can be decreased.
- You should avoid activities that can make you too hot, like hot yoga or exercising in the sun. Bikram yoga is practiced in a room that is heated to a temperature between 95 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Pregnant women should avoid it because it can cause hyperthermia, which is when body temperature gets too high.
Precautions to take when exercising during pregnancy
- Be sure to stay hydrated before, during, and after your workout. Signs of dehydration are feeling dizzy, a fast or strong heartbeat, and urine changes.
- Wear a supportive sports bra to protect your breasts. Later in pregnancy, running or walking can be more comfortable with the use of a belly support belt.
- Avoid getting too hot, especially in the first trimester. Exercise in a temperature-controlled space, drink lots of water, and wear loose-fitting clothing. When it’s hot or humid outside, avoid exercising.
Warning signs to stop pregnancy workouts
If you see any of these signs while exercising during pregnancy, contact your doctor immediately.
- Uterine bleeding
- Unusual pain
- Unsteadiness or faintness
- Unusual breathlessness
- Chest discomfort or an erratic heartbeat
- Your vaginal fluid is leaking.
- Contractions of the uterus
- Muscle pain
- If you feel exhausted, overheated, crowded, lightheaded, or dizzy, stop.
It can be hard to know where to start because pregnancy brings many body changes. In the first trimester, you can continue your fitness routine if your doctor approves.
You might need to adjust or regress some exercises as your pregnancy goes along to account for it. Not currently engaging in regular exercise? There are many safe ways to start exercising, so don’t worry. Should you start Olympic weightlifting or prepare for a marathon? Perhaps not, but as this site has shown you, there are plenty of alternatives.