I had just started training for my first marathon, earlier this year, when I discovered I was pregnant. It was a genius excuse to get out of an endurance event I was feeling a bit unprepared for. But, although I decided not to push myself, it was not because pregnant women can’t push.
Researchers recently compared being a pregnant woman to being an endurance athlete, finding pregnancy is as metabolically taxing to the body. Yet, some heavily pregnant women capably do both.
Many pregnant women are capable of pushing hard, but it doesn’t mean they should. Credit:Getty
Olympian Alysia Montano competed in the 800 metres at the 2014 US Track and Field Championships while pregnant, drawing audible gasps from the public.
Montano told the New York Times this year that she had wanted to turn stereotypes about pregnancy upside down and wanted people to recognise that fitness in pregnancy is “actually a really good thing”. Indeed it is.
Attitudes to exercising while pregnant have, thankfully, changed from the antiquated 1940s prescription of rest. By the '80s, we fragile flowers were allowed to take a daily walk but still warned from dancing, running or any strenuous exercise lasting longer than 15 minutes. Today, 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week is considered beneficial to both mother and baby and those women who have been exercising intensely pre-pregnancy can continue to do so, assuming they have chatted with their doctor and don’t have complications.
“It’s time that we encourage and support women in continuing to exercise in pregnancy rather than scare them as the health benefits are simply indisputable,” says Lyz Evans, of Women In Focus Physiotherapy. “Benefits of exercise in pregnancy include reduced risk of gestational diabetes, maintenance of fitness and strength, management of weight gain, reduced risk of pre-eclampsia, mental health, as well as improved ability to cope with labour for both mother and baby.”
That said, Evans points out there is “very little research” into how hard women can and should push during pregnancy.
One 2018 study compared fetal growth and premature labour among pregnant recreational runners who stopped running in the first trimester or continued through their second and third trimesters.
“They found no difference to any of the runners [apart from] an increase in the rates of instrumental deliveries in the runners, which is an area that needs further investigation,” Evans says. “The best approach is common sense – where the woman is informed and listens to her body. If she feels conformable, has a low-risk pregnancy, feels good during and after the exercise, ensures she is not too short of breath, and if not over-heating then she is safe to continue.”
Today, 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week is considered beneficial to both mother and baby.
My common sense kicked in differently this time around. When I was pregnant with my daughter two years ago, I insisted on doing the exercise I had always done.
In many ways, this enabled me to feel both strong and capable, but in retrospect, I wondered whether I had pushed myself hard, in part, out of fear; fear of losing control and of the huge change afoot, both physically and of life as I had known it.
I also wondered whether my resistance to change and insistence on maintaining the same intense exercise regime led to complications when I gave birth; that I was so rigid from exercise that I struggled to relax and let go during the labour.
It’s unlikely I’ll ever know the answer to that question – and fitness is essential to a healthy pregnancy – but pushing ourselves is not necessary, even when we can.
There’s something to be said for going a little easier on ourselves when there are, as Evans explains “significant anatomical, metabolic, cardiovascular and pulmonary changes” happening daily, including the 50 per cent more blood pumping around the body which ramps up our heart rate even while we’re resting.
There’s also the added fatigue from the extra stress on the body, and the argument that if you’re pushing yourself to run a race or keep up with what you’ve always done you might be more likely to ignore your body's, and therefore your baby’s, signals.
Then there is the psychological side; receptivity to change and softening to the whole experience.
So, I chose not to do the Melbourne Marathon this time and downgraded 30 kilometres to the 10k “fun run”, very loosely following the training plan put together by Tim Robards for Marriot Bonvoy and Westin Hotels & Resorts, who sponsor the run.
I cruised through the event, riding the group high that is half the fun of challenges like this. Afterwards, I put on my hotel robe and slippers, ordered room service from the hotel’s Eat Well menu (including the sweet potato chips, which it helpfully points out, are high in serotonin-boosting tryptophan and recovery-promoting potassium), and gave myself permission to relax into this pregnancy.
I admire women like Montano, who also won the 800 metres at the 2015 US championships while still breastfeeding her daughter and wearing tape to hold her “torn apart” abdominal muscles together, but I no longer believe we need to push hard through pregnancy to remain fit or to prove ourselves as capable.
Pregnancy and giving birth is, I now know, already one of the most challenging endurance events out there. And like any good challenge, it changes us, undoing us and remaking us into different, stronger versions of ourselves.
Lyz Evans' advice for pregnant women regarding vigorous exercise:
The writer was a guest of Marriot Bonvoy and Westin Hotels & Resorts.
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