Things Need To Take Care While Doing Exercise During Pregnancy
One of the most common questions asked by the pregnant patients visiting in any OPD is regarding exercise during pregnancy, whether exercise is safe and whether it can be done during pregnancy. As long as your pregnancy is healthy and you are relatively normal, exercise is very safe in pregnancy. Exercise does not increase the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight babies or preterm labour. Although exercise is safe, We would advise you to consult us before starting exercises during pregnancy. If you have been active before pregnancy, you can continue the same amount of activity throughout pregnancy. But if you haven’t been doing exercises, it is advised to start exercising during pregnancy.
There are certain conditions when exercise is not advised. These include
- if you have a cardiac condition,
- if you have a twin pregnancy or a triplet pregnancy with risk factors for a preterm delivery,
- if you have hypertension in pregnancy,
- if you have a low-lying placenta even after the sixth month,
- if you have a short cervix or cervical encirclement has been done.
Benefits of exercise during pregnancy.
- Reduces back pain.
- it eases constipation.
- It reduces your risk of developing certain medical conditions such as gestational diabetes and hypertension during pregnancy.
- it ensures a healthy weight gain during pregnancy which can in fact help you to have a normal vaginal delivery.
What are the exercises that you can do during pregnancy.
- Brisk Walking.
- Swimming.
- Water Workouts.
- Stationary Bicycling.
- You can do yoga that is specific to pregnancy and Pilates in pregnancy.
What is advised is moderate intensity of walking, which should be at least 150 minutes in a week. So that would be at least 30 minutes for five times in a week. If you haven’t been exercising earlier, you can start with five minutes of walking and add up five minutes every week till you reach the 30 minute target. The intensity should be moderate by which mean that you are sweating and your heart rate is rising. But when you are doing the activity you are able to talk comfortably and you are not breathless.
Precautions During Exercises
- Make sure that you are well hydrated prior to the workout, during the workout and after the workout.
- Wear good supportive clothing and wear loose fitting clothes at the same time.
- Some of the warning signs for which you should stop exercising include any chest pain or any palpitations, dizziness, any bleeding or any pain in the lower abdomen is an indication for you to stop exercising.
Finally, We want to stress that exercising is very important so that it can increase your chance of having a normal delivery at the end of 9 months.
