By Bianca Grover

If you or a loved one is expecting, and your reading this, let me start by saying congratulations! What an exciting time in life. The thought of being pregnant and exercising might be scary to many women, but the general consensus based on expanding research is that exercise is safe and recommended during pregnancy - as long as it is not a high-risk pregnancy. Any woman approved by their obstetric physician can start an exercise program and reap the benefits.

Out of all changes that occur to a woman’s body during pregnancy, the most visible one is the increase and distribution in body weight due to the growing fetus. This typically leads to a change in the mother’s center of gravity which frequently leads to lower back and pelvic pain.

Significant hormonal changes occur as well. For example, there are increases in aldosterone and estrogen which contribute to water retention and increased blood volume. Fatigue and nausea can also be chalked up to the changing hormone levels.

Benefits of Exercise

Exercise is not only safe, but recommended during pregnancy due to the many benefits for both the mother and the baby. Regular exercise improves circulation and helps prevent pregnancy-related edema (swelling caused by excess fluid); it improves your mood and reduces your chances of developing gestational diabetes and preeclampsia (high blood pressure and protein in the urine).

Mothers are not the only ones benefiting from regular exercise; regular physical activity increases the chances of delivering healthy weight babies and decreases the chances of experiencing delivery complications. Babies have improved cardiovascular and nervous system maturation before and after birth if their mothers are physically active during gestation.

Exercising Safely

Due to the physical and hormonal changes that take place, it is important to keep in mind that some exercises and stretches are better avoided. For example, due to laxity of joints, you can easily overstretch your joints and get injured.

Avoid exercising in a supine position after 16 weeks of pregnancy in order to avoid compression of the inferior vena cava. This leads to less blood flow back to the heart, thus causing hypotension and dizziness. It is crucial to understand that hypotension can even occur with changes in body position. This being said, pregnant women need to avoid exercising in supine positions, holding their breath, bouncy exercises or wide ranges of motion in the pelvic area.

It is safe to exercise at an intensity of 40%-60% of heart rate reserve, which you calculate by subtracting your resting heart rate from your max heart rate . It is always recommended to stretch and warm-up before exercising and stretch and cool-down after exercising in order to avoid blood pressure complications. Both aerobic and resistance training are recommended at a frequency of 3-4 days a week, 30-60 minutes per session.

If you have any questions, worries or needs when it comes to exercising with baby and mother, please feel free to contact me.