Healthy Exercise While Pregnant

To take care of your growing baby, you need to take care of your body. This means cravings are a sometimes thing, and exercise is a must. As you gain weight throughout your trimesters, exerting yourself becomes more difficult and more dangerous. Doctors recommend pregnant women get 150 minutes of active time per week. That’s only 22 minutes per day. It’s okay to work up to this, and to get exercise in small bursts throughout the day. It’s important to only do what you find manageable.

So, here are our best tips for staying active through pregnancy with ease, and even a little grace.

Wonderful Wonderous Water

The most important advice we can offer is to stay cool and hydrated. While dehydration is bad for everyone, pregnant people should keep that extra watchful eye on their fluid intake and their electrolytes (sodium, potassium, calcium, etc.). Your body and brain use these electrolytes to keep your nerves and muscles functioning, as well as to balance water levels in your body’s cells.

Water is going to be your new best friend, as a pregnant woman. Not only will you drink (and pee!) a lot, but you’ll find water-assisted exercise much easier than your yoga mat. Water will keep you buoyant, and stop you from injuring yourself if you fall. It all creates resistance, meaning you need to work your muscles more to walk through water than you would use walking down your sidewalk. Beaches and lakes will work fine for this, but we recommend pools, where you can guide yourself along the ledge for extra balance. Try to go during adult swim, so you’re not constantly avoiding splashing children.

There’s nothing wrong with splashing around, though. If that’s your idea of a good time, feel free to bring some friends, bring some floaties, and play your games. Enjoying exercise is secret number one to making it consistent. Adding friends, or games, or setting goals for yourself can make exercise more enjoyable!

Solid(-Ground) Exercise Ideas

Adding friends makes any recipe sweeter. There’s plenty of exercise classes and yoga classes exclusively aimed at pregnant women, with stretches and exercises designed to help you relieve tension on your joints and improve blood circulation. If you’re having trouble finding a class schedule that works for you, you could start your own. Saturday Morning Mommy Yoga, for example, in a local park. You can find plenty of people who are looking for more mom friends in local mom groups on Facebook.

Once you have people interested, you have a world of options you can choose from. Yoga is simply one idea. Walking, in the park or along nature trails, also makes for a good group activity. (Tip: When walking, take your stroller. It will aid your balance and help you practice controlling it for future days.)

There are simple ways to stay active around the house as well. Swap out your desk chair for an exercise ball to work your core, or try a walking pad if it’s too cold to leave the house! No matter what you choose, invest in a good pair of running shoes. Swollen ankles are a very real side-effect of pregnancy, and a pair of sneakers you feel good in can make-or-break everything from running errands to running at the gym. A bellyband or other maternity exercise-wear that keeps you supported and feeling on top of the world is also worth considering. Try setting pedometers challenges for yourself; each day try to take more steps than the day before. You can track any exercise like this. We recommend squats and wall sits. They aid in flexibility in the hips and legs, and keep your body upright to aid in blood circulation. Watching your fitness improve overtime can be uplifting! It might even be the motivation you need to stay active on harder days.

You cold also try a simple set of desktop dumbbells, or even filling up your diaper bag with all the necessities, and then picking it up and putting it down. When weightlifting, we don’t need challenging weights to train us to lift more. Doing more repetitions with a manageable weight will build your strength and tone your muscles, at the same time! You want to avoid lifting a lot of weight while pregnant, so listen to your doctor and know your limits.

What you can skip

·       Contact sports

o   Soccer

o   Rugby

o   Basketball

·       Hot yoga

·       Running/cycling

o   (If you love cardio, try the elliptical or a stationary/recumbent bike!)

·       Falling and/or tumbling

o   Ice hockey

o   Skiing

o   Snowboarding

o   Rock climbing

·       Exercising in the heat

·       Exercising laying flat on your back