Everyone knows that exercise during pregnancy is a good thing, if your prenatal care provider feels that you are healthy enough to exercise. Of course, when you are pregnant, exercising may not be something that you feel like doing much of the time especially if you feel nauseous or tired. I have been pregnant twice, and the first time around I did not exercise very much. The second time, I exercised regularly from the time that I discovered that I was pregnant until a week before my son was born, when my midwives decided that it was not safe for me to exercise any more.
My personal experience with exercise during pregnancy is that it does make a difference in how you feel both during and after pregnancy. It may make you a little more tired, but in my mind it is worth it. I know that exercise is supposed to make you have more energy, and it does that for me when I am not pregnant. When I was pregnant this last time, exercise certainly did make me tired. As my belly got bigger and bigger, I experienced less discomfort than I did the first time. I believe that this is because of the exercise. It also may have helped to keep my blood pressure at an acceptable level until very late in the pregnancy at week 38, as opposed to my first pregnancy where it began to rise at around thirty weeks.
During my first pregnancy when I did not exercise much, I think that I recovered more slowly than I am recovering this time. For my first pregnancy, I did not have a cesarean birth and this time I did. However, even though I experienced that major surgery about a week and a half ago, my body feels strong and healing is going well. I attribute this to exercise.
My favorite pregnancy exercise was also the exercise that happened to be the most practical – walking. From August until it became too cold to walk outdoors, I took my son out in his stroller four or five times a week for a nice, long walk. Once it became too cold to walk, I started using my elliptical trainer while my son was napping or sleeping. I also sometimes did a dance aerobics video, modifying the movements to be safe for pregnancy. That was fun, because my son likes to mimic the dancers on the video too.
What is your favorite form of exercise while you are pregnant?
Photo by grietgriet on morguefile.com.