Baby, You Better Work It
I’ve spoken previously about exercise being beneficial, which at this point almost everyone knows. No breaking news headlines there. I would argue that there is still a vast number of individuals that still don’t take the time. I’ve recently had some life changes myself and learned that I will be a father later this year. For fun I looked up the recommendations for exercising during pregnancy. Turns out still recommended oddly enough. Yet only about 23-29% of pregnant patients get the recommended amount of exercise. I’m proud that my wife’s a part of those 20 percenters and has kept quite active.
The general recommendation for exercise for the average person is 150-300 minutes a week. When studies tout how beneficial exercise is, it is this benchmark that needs to be reached to attain those benefits. So while something is better than nothing- to truly see results the 150 minutes mark needs to be the minimum amount of time exercising. These recommendation are consistent with pregnant people as well, though good luck telling a pregnant person that they need to exercise more…
Aerobic exercise has shown to have great benefits for all individuals and has shown to help during pregnancy to stave off complications.
While that may sound like a lot of time, 30-60 minutes a day throughout the week, it doesn’t have to be in one sitting. It can be in 10 minutes intervals, which isn’t really that hard to carve out of the day. It just needs to be a higher priority. Stay on track with this and during pregnancy there is an inverse relationship (meaning more exercise shows less risk) with physical activity with certain conditions that can plague a pregnancy such as: gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia (high BP and loss of protein in urine that can lead to seizures in pregnant women), and depressive symptoms during and AFTER pregnancy. Pregnant women have higher levels of hormones that help joints and ligaments move more easily, and can develop low back and hip pain due to this. Exercise is beneficial for this especially strengthening the hip stabilizer muscles, which will help off load the strain on the low back.
Not only can she keep up being active, she is actually growing a human being inside her body!
Generally I will rarely say for someone not to exercise unless they are injured, but there are times that pregnant individuals should not exercise. Pregnancy is one of the only times that bedrest may actually be a good recommendation. Some conditions in pregnancy that exercise is absolutely not recommended are restrictive lung disease or pregnancy induce high blood pressure (as it causes people to work harder to breath and does raise BP during exercise). Otherwise, conditions like asthma/COPD, and poorly controlled blood pressure, exercise is relatively contraindicated, which would be on a case by case basis- depending on severity.
So there are only a couple of instances that pregnant women shouldn’t exercise, and that should always be directed by their primary or obstetrical physician. Now, that doesn’t mean that they should be doing all types of exercise. After the first trimester it not recommended to exercise laying flat on the back and modifications should be made. Pregnant individuals can still do high intensity exercise, but need to ensure they are not at risk of falling on their belly. Certain activities such of non-stationary bike riding, scuba diving, rock climbing, are not recommended. Just imaging the looks a pregnant women would get boxing. Safe high intensity exercise is good for pregnant people, and if it doesn’t feel safe, then modify it. In the current times of the pandemic, exercising in a mask is still safe for pregnant women as well.
So whether pregnant or not, keep moving and stay safe our there!
