Stay In Shape

Keeping Fit

Fitness goes hand in hand with eating right to maintain your physical health and well-being during pregnancy. Pregnant or not, physical fitness helps keep the heart, bones, and mind healthy. Healthy pregnant women should get at least 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week. It's best to spread your workouts throughout the week. If you regularly engage in vigorous-intensity aerobic activity or high amounts of activity, you can keep up your activity level as long as your health doesn't change and you talk to your doctor about your activity level throughout your pregnancy.

Special benefits of physical activity during pregnancy:

  • Exercise can ease and prevent aches and pains of pregnancy including constipation, varicose veins, backaches, and exhaustion.
  • Active women seem to be better prepared for labor and delivery and recover more quickly.
  • Exercise may lower the risk of preeclampsia and gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
  • Fit women have an easier time getting back to a healthy weight after delivery.
  • Regular exercise may improve sleep during pregnancy.
  • Staying active can protect your emotional health. Pregnant women who exercise seem to have better self-esteem and a lower risk of depression and anxiety.
  • Results from a recent, large study suggest that women who are physically active during pregnancy may lower their chances of preterm delivery.

Getting Started

For most healthy moms-to-be who do not have any pregnancy-related problems, exercise is a safe and valuable habit. Even so, talk to your doctor or midwife before exercising during pregnancy. She or he will be able to suggest a fitness plan that is safe for you. Getting a doctor's advice before starting a fitness routine is important for both inactive women and women who exercised before pregnancy.

If you have one of these conditions, your doctor will advise you not to exercise:

  • Risk factors for preterm labor
  • Vaginal bleeding
  • Premature rupture of membranes (when your water breaks early, before labor)

Best Activity For Moms-To-Be

Low-impact activities at a moderate level of effort are comfortable and enjoyable for many pregnant women. Walking, swimming, dancing, cycling, and low-impact aerobics are some examples. These sports also are easy to take up, even if you are new to physical fitness.

Some higher intensity sports are safe for some pregnant women who were already doing them before becoming pregnant. If you jog, play racquet sports, or lift weights, you may continue with your doctor's okay.

Keep these points in mind when choosing a fitness plan:

  • Avoid activities in which you can get hit in the abdomen like kickboxing, soccer, basketball, or ice hockey.
  • Steer clear of activities in which you can fall like horseback riding, downhill skiing, and gymnastics.
  • Do not scuba dive during pregnancy. Scuba diving can create gas bubbles in your baby's blood that can cause many health problems.

Tips for safe and healthy physical activity

Follow these tips for safe and healthy fitness:

  • When you exercise, start slowly, progress gradually, and cool down slowly.
  • You should be able to talk while exercising. If not, you may be overdoing it.
  • Take frequent breaks.
  • Don't exercise on your back after the first trimester. This can put too much pressure on an important vein and limit blood flow to the baby.
  • Avoid jerky, bouncing, and high-impact movements. Connective tissues stretch much more easily during pregnancy. So these types of movements put you at risk of joint injury.
  • Be careful not to lose your balance. As your baby grows, your center of gravity shifts making you more prone to falls. For this reason, activities like jogging, using a bicycle, or playing racquet sports might be riskier as you near the third trimester.
  • Don't exercise at high altitudes (more than 6,000 feet). It can prevent your baby from getting enough oxygen.
  • Don't exercise at high altitudes (more than 6,000 feet). It can prevent your baby from getting enough oxygen.
  • Do not workout in extreme heat or humidity.
  • If you feel uncomfortable, short of breath, or tired, take a break and take it easier when you exercise again.

Stop exercising and call your doctor as soon as possible if you have any of the following:

  • Dizziness
  • Headache
  • Chest pain
  • Calf pain or swelling
  • Abdominal pain
  • Blurred vision
  • Fluid leaking from the vagina
  • Vaginal bleeding
  • Less fetal movement
  • Contractions

Work Out Your Pelvic Floor (Kegel Exercises)

Your pelvic floor muscles support the rectum, vagina, and urethra in the pelvis. Toning these muscles with Kegel exercises will help you push during delivery and recover from birth. It also will help control bladder leakage and lower your chance of getting hemorrhoids.

Pelvic muscles are the same ones used to stop the flow of urine. Still, it can be hard to find the right muscles to squeeze. You can be sure you are exercising the right muscles if when you squeeze them you stop urinating. Or you can put a finger into the vagina and squeeze. If you feel pressure around the finger, you've found the pelvic floor muscles. Try not to tighten your stomach, legs, or other muscles.

Kegel Exercises

  1. Tighten the pelvic floor muscles for a count of three, then relax for a count of three.
  2. Repeat 10 to 15 times, three times a day.
  3. Start Kegel exercises lying down. This is the easiest position. When your muscles get stronger, you can do Kegel exercises sitting or standing as you like.

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