Exercise For a Healthy Pregnancy

Regular exercise will build up your stamina and improve your suppleness and strength. This will help you cope with the extra demands made on your body as it adapts to pregnancy and childbirth, By exercising you can also develop a better understanding of what your body can do and learn different ways of relaxing.

Exercising helps you feel positive, so you're less likely to think of yourself as clumsy, fat, or ungainly, particularly in the last three months. Your circulation will improve, and that can help to ease tension. Labor may be easier and more comfortable if your muscle tone is good, and many of the exercises you learn in prenatal classes, combined with relaxation and breathing techniques, will help you trust your body during labor. And if you stay in good shape during pregnancy, you'll get your figure back more quickly after your baby's birth.

Your Exercise Routine

You might think it's impossible to fit exercise into your schedule every day. But many of the best exercises for pregnancy, as shown on the following pages, can be done while you're doing something else: you can do pelvic floor exercises while you're brushing your teeth; foot and ankle exercises while sitting at your desk; and tailor-sitting when watching television.

Start your routine gently and gradually build up to what feels right for you. Before each exercise, take a few deep breaths. This gets the blood flowing around your body and gives all your muscles a good supply of oxygen. If you feel any pain, cramping, or shortness of breath, stop exercising, and when you start again, make sure you go more slowly. If you're out of breath, your baby won't be getting enough oxygen either. Getting oxygen to your baby is your body's priority, so you may feel short of breath doing activities you had no problem with before pregnancy.

Doing a little exercise several times a day is better than a lotall at once, and then none at all. Normally a woman can restore her energy by lying down for half an hour, but when you're pregnant, it can take half a day to recover from fatigue. So be kind to yourself and choose exercise that you enjoy and find relaxing.

Good Ways To Exercise

Most sports are fine, as long you've been doing that sport regularly before your pregnancy and you keep it up consistently once you're pregnant so that you stay in shape. Check the list for some of the best activities and those to avoid.

Swimming This is an excellent way to exercise when you're pregnant. Swimming tones most of your muscles and is a good way to build up your stamina. Your body weight is supported by the water, so you're unlikely to strain or injure any of your muscles and joints. Some gyms offer special swimming classes for pregnant women.

Yoga This helps increase your suppleness and reduces tension. It also teaches you to control your breathing and concentration, which are useful skills during labor.

Walking Even if you're not usually very active, you'll be able to manage some regular walks of a mile or more. Walking is good for your digestion, your circulation, and your figure. Try to walk tall, with your buttocks tucked under your spine, your shoulders back, and your head held up, not hanging down. Toward the end of pregnancy, though, you may find that the cartilage in your pelvic joints has softened so much that you get a backache if you walk more than a short distance. Always wear well-cushioned flat shoes when you go out for a walk.

Dancing As long as you're not too energetic, it's fine to dance as often as you like throughout pregnancy.

Go Carefully

It's safest not to continue cycling, skiing, and horseback riding once you get big, because your balance is thrown off by the extra weight out in front. Other activities, including those listed below, are best avoided because they put your body under unnecessary stress that could harm both you and your baby.

Jogging This is very hard on your breasts and jarring for your back, spine, pelvis, hips, and knees. Don't jog when pregnant.

Backpacking Weight-bearing activities like this are not good because they put a severe strain on the ligaments in your back. Remember that when you're pregnant, progesterone relaxes your ligaments, and unlike muscles, which can go back to their old shapes, ligaments remain stretched.

Sit-ups Avoid any exercise that pulls on your abdominal muscles. The longitudinal muscles of the abdomen are designed to separate in the middle to allow room for your enlarging uterus­sitting straight up from a lying position forces them to part even farther. If you strain these muscles, it may take longer for you to get back your abdominal tone after the birth. Never exercise flat on your back after your fourth month. By that time your uterus is heavy enough to compress the veins taking blood to your heart, reducing blood flow to your head, making you feel dizzy and faint. To sit up from a lying position, always roll over on to your side and use your arms to push you up sideways.