{"id":2864,"date":"2019-10-27T18:59:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T22:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=2864"},"modified":"2022-04-14T17:07:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T21:07:58","slug":"exercising-while-pregnant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/exercising-while-pregnant\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercising While Pregnant: Pros and Cons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Want to keep active while you&#8217;re pregnant? That&#8217;s great. But you should know some pros and cons of exercising while you&#8217;re pregnant. Learn the good exercises and bad exercises of exercising while pregnant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Exercising When You&#8217;re Pregnant Dos and Don&#8217;ts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, is exercising while pregnant actually good for you and the baby? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is little evidence suggesting that <strong>exercise has any effects on preterm birth, rate of C-section, length of labor, or baby APGAR scores<\/strong>. Exercise does show a modestly lower weight gain (1.3 fewer pounds).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are specific exercises to consider and to avoid:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Exercises to consider while pregnant:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Kegels<ul><li>These exercise your pelvic floor muscles<\/li><li>3 sets of 8 kegels per day improves urinary continence during late pregnancy and postpartum<\/li><li>A small study showed women in Kegels experimental group showed shorter time pushing (40 vs 45 minutes)<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Prenatal Yoga<ul><li>Small studies suggest yoga reduces discomfort in late pregnancy, decreased length of labor (2.5 hours shorter), and lower levels of pain during labor<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Exercises to avoid:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Exercise with risk of physical trauma or falling (skiing, football, climbing) can cause the placenta to detach<\/li><li>Very high heart rate exercise (eg 90% of max) can decrease blood flow to baby<\/li><li>Doctors suggest avoiding sit-ups or crunches where you lie flat on your back, since this may drop blood pressure and reduce blood flow.<ul><li>Oster suggests this is actually fine; if you feel uncomfortable while doing it, then just stop.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Insomnia<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sleeping may be tough in later pregnancy due to aches and positioning issues.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>recommendation is to sleep on the left side, not the back<\/strong>. The evidence is currently inconclusive &#8211; some studies show sleeping on the back or right side doubled stillbirth rate. However, a blood flow study found that lying on your back found no particularly bad impact on blood flow.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some women feel faint on their backs &#8211; if so, then they should switch to their left side. If you don\u2019t feel faint, it\u2019s <em>probably<\/em> fine, though if you can sleep on your left, that\u2019s preferred.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking OTC sleep aids like Unisom are fine. Ambien has mixed safety data, but Oster believes it\u2019s fine occasionally.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Want to keep active while you&#8217;re pregnant? That&#8217;s great. But you should know some pros and cons of exercising while you&#8217;re pregnant. Learn the good exercises and bad exercises of exercising while pregnant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-2864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-expecting-better","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Exercising While Pregnant: Pros and Cons - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Want to keep active while you&#039;re pregnant? That&#039;s great! 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