There are three sections to this post: 1) moms-to-be, 2) pregnancy fitness teachers and personal trainers and 3) some specific contraindicated and adapted exercises. All information presented is based on peer-review research and evidence collected over a 30 year period of working with this population. More information on safety can be found on this site on the page Benefits, Safety & Guidelines.

1) Safety & Exercise Guidelines for Moms-To-Be

First and foremost, be safe. Trust your body. Make sure your teacher or trainer is certified by an established organization that specializes in pre/postnatal exercise, has worked under master teachers during her preparation, and can answer or get answers to your questions.

These are the safety principles that we suggest to our participants:

• get proper screen­ing from your health care provider
• pro­tect yourself
• do not over­reach your abilities
• you are respon­si­ble for your body (and its contents)

Squatting is an example of a standard pregnancy exercise used for childbirth preparation that must be adapted by each individual based on body proportions, flexibility, strength and comfort.

Don’t assume that because your teacher and some participants can do a certain movement or position that you should be able to do it just like they do. If your teacher is well trained, she will be able to help you select variations that are appropriate for your body.

When you are exercising, make sure you are getting the most from your activity. Keep these findings in mind when choosing your workout routine:

• Aerobics and strength training provide the greatest health benefits, reduce the risk for some interventions in labor, help shorten labor, and reduce recovery time
• Cen­ter­ing helps to prevent injury; relaxation and deep breathing reduce stress; and mild stretching can relieve some discomforts
• Avoid fatigue and over-training; do reg­u­lar exer­cise 3 — 5 times a week
• Eat small meals many times a day (200–300 calo­ries every 2–3 hours
• Drink at least 8 cups of water every day
• Avoid hot, humid places
• Wear good shoes dur­ing aer­o­bic activities
• BE CAREFUL! LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!

If you experience any of the following symptoms, stop exercising and call your health care provider:

• Sudden pelvic or vaginal pain
• Excessive fatigue
• Dizziness or shortness of breath
• Leaking fluid or bleeding from the vagina
• Regular contractions, 4 or more per hour
• Increased heartbeat while resting
• Sudden abnormal decrease in fetal movement (note: it is completely normal for baby’s movements to decrease slightly during exercise)

2) Safety & Exercise Guidelines for Teachers & Trainers

A principle of practice that increases in importance for fitness professionals working with pregnant women is having the knowledge and skills to articulate the rationale and safety guidelines for every movement she asks clients to perform.

This goal requires adherence to safety as the number one priority. Here is how we delineate safety and the procedures we require of our instructors for achieving safety in practice:

First priority: safety [First, do no harm]

• sometimes medical conditions preclude exercise
• find an appropriate starting point for each individual
• individual tolerances affect modification
• general safety guidelines are physical
• pregnant women also need psychological safety

Mind-Body Safety Procedures

• Centering enhances movement efficiency and safety.
• Always begin with centering.

Strength Training Cautions

• avoid Valsalva maneuver
• avoid free weights after mid pregnancy (open chain; control issue)
• avoid supine after 1st trimester
• avoid semi-recumbent 3rd trimester
• keep in mind the common joint displacements, and nerve and blood vessel entrapment when designing specific exercises

Aerobics or Cardiovascular Conditioning Procedures

• Monitor for safety
• Instructional style needs to be appropriate.
• Walking steps with natural gestures can be done throughout pregnancy
• Vigorous steps with large gestures are more intense, appropriate as fitness increases
• The ability to create movement that will be safe and work for various levels of fitness and at different points in pregnancy is one of the most critical skills for pregnancy fitness instructors.

Venue Safety

• Setting should provide physical and emotional safety
  Equipment must be well-maintained

3) Contraindicated and adapted exercises

Exercises for which case studies and research have shown that there are serious medical issues include the “down dog” position, resting on the back after the 4th month, and abdominal crunches and oblique exercises. Here is more information and adaptation suggestions:

Contraindicated: “Down Dog” requires that the pelvic floor and vaginal area are quite stretched, bringing porous blood vessels at the surface of the vagina close to air. There are records of air entering the vaginal blood vessels in this position and moving to the heart as a fatal air embolism.

Adaptation: Use the child’s pose, with the seat down resting on the heels and the elbows on the ground, hands one on top of the other, and forehead resting on the hands. Keep the heart above the pelvis.

_________

Contraindicated: Resting on the back during relaxation.

Adaptation: Rest in the side-lying position. About 75% prefer the left side, 25% prefer the right side.

_________

Contraindicated: Abdominal crunches and oblique exercises can contribute to diastasis recti in some women. The transverse abdominal muscle is not always able to maintain vertical integrity at the linea alba, and thus there is tearing and/or plasticity of that central connective tissue.

Adaptation: Splinting with curl-downs, see positions below. By pressing the sides of the abdomen toward the center, women can continue to strengthen the transverse abdominals without the shearing forces that place lateral pressure on the linea alba.

Curl-downs are generally the safest and most effective abdominal strenthening exercise.

Splint by crossing arms and pulling toward center (L)

Or, splint by placing hands at sides and pressing toward center ®

It’s time to hit the main theme again:  Aerobically fit women are at reduced risk for things that go wrong in pregnancy, improve their tolerance for labor and birth, and recover more rapidly in the postpartum period.

Moving into Motherhood

The arrival of the holidays provides a good reason to bring this up, yet again! Pregnancy is a gateway time in women’s lives…we become more aware of our bodies, our sensations, our feelings, our needs, and how versatile and amazing our bodies are. We can make people with our bodies! During pregnancy, we often take precautions…we eat more carefully, avoid toxins, try to avoid stress. When the holidays arrive, we see indulgent behavior in a different light.

Yet, even with all this focus on behavior, we sometimes miss the biggest aid to a healthy pregnancy:  physical fitness. Research clearly demonstrates that fit women do better, are healthier and happier. More and more in the U.S. we see disorders of normal organ function that accompany sedentary pregnancy.

Let’s look at this a little closer (yes, I am going to repeat myself some more, but it is an important concept to spread). We live in a body model that rewards an active lifestyle.

Being sedentary causes things to go wrong

Not moving creates biochemical imbalances because the cardiovascular system atrophies and molecules created in the brain or brought in through the digestion may not get where they need to go for a healthy metabolism.

Your cardiovasculature is the highway that brings usable substances to the place they are used. You have to help it grow and develop, use it to pump things around and give it a chance to be healthy. Aerobic fitness does all these things.

Advice for young women of childbearing age

If you are thinking of pregnancy, have recently become pregnant, or work with women of childbearing age, we encourage you to open avenues of activity for yourself or others in this population. You can learn more from our blog dancingthrupregnancy.wordpress.com. You can seek out local pre/postnatal fitness experts on this site. Yoga is nice…we use some of it in our work, along other specific exercises for which there is a direct health benefit. But, we also see yoga converts who come into our program in mid pregnancy unable to breathe after walking up a flight of stairs. How will they do in labor? Not as well as those who have been doing aerobic dance or an elliptical machine 2 or 3 times a week.

The AHA/ACSM guidelines for the amount of aerobic exercise needed to improve cardiovascular status hold true for pregnant women just as they do for the rest of the population – a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate, or 75 minutes of vigorous, or a combination of these levels of intensity, per week. If you are not getting this level of activity, you are putting your health – and that of your offspring – at risk.

Pregnancy fitness is not only important for moms, but for the fetus as well. Evidence is clear that aerobic fitness improves brain, heart, immune and metabolic function…at all ages, including in utero. If continued early in life, healthy physical adaptations that occur in the uterus become reinforced behavior, preparing a good foundation for a healthy lifestyle. Babies are acute observers of movement and activity, and learn from each other. A key component of a good mom-baby program is the interaction of the babies themselves. A good teacher will facilitate healthy activity among our smallest class members!

There is growing evidence that at all ages, aerobic fitness produces the greatest number of benefits. Recently, researchers determined that aerobic fitness in 9 and 10 year olds produced benefits in the development of two important brain regions — the basal ganglia and the hippocampus — that are significant factors in problem-solving intelligence. This is just one of the latest reports that tells us the capacity to absorb and use oxygen (which improves with aerobic fitness) is a key to health, quality and length of life…beginning in the womb!

Sometimes it seems like pregnancy is a time of restrictions. Avoiding risks can be one thing that makes it seem that way. But, bear with us here in an interesting trip through danger and finding you find ways of enhancing your pregnancy!

Risk Factor #1:

Lack of prenatal care. More than anything else, be sure you have care. Having someone monitor your health and that of your baby during pregnancy is vital to a good outcome.

Risk Factor #2:

Not exercising. Sedentary behavior increases the risk for metabolic, cardiovascular and immune disorders.

I know, I know, you don’t have time to exercise. Well, pay now or pay later, as they say. Make time to go to a class (make sure it includes 20 –30 minutes of aerobics) a couple times a week. A class will also provide social support, another factor that enhances your pregnancy. Take a walk at lunch time. Practice relaxation techniques.

Risk Factor #3:

Breathing dangerous fumes. Yes, this includes smoking and second-hand smoke. But, it also means avoiding environments where there is a lot smog (near highways), living with mold or dust, and fancy cleansers that may have dangerous chemicals in them. Stick with vinegar, ammonia or bleach as cleansers.

Smog can endanger your fetus!

We are learning that combustion exhaust from cars and trucks can negatively affect birth weight and prematurity. If you live or work near a highway or in an area where smog is prevalent, what are your options? Can you transfer or move? Can you wear a mask? Talk to your care provider and figure out the best protection for you and your fetus.

Risk Factor #4:

Poor Nutrition. Yup, just go back one entry and find out how food affects pregnancy. If you don’t eat enough protein and drink enough water, you don’t make sufficient blood volume to nourish your placenta and thus your fetus.

Read labels!

Eat whole foods and learn to read labels when you buy processed foods. What is a “processed” food? Anything with more than one ingredient!

Some processing (ex: homemade soup) takes little nutrition away, but some processing (ex: potato chips) takes everything good away and replaces it with unsafe substances. Look for low sodium, low sugar, high vitamin and mineral content items with no saturated or trans fats.

Read the ingredients; if you don’t know what the words mean, maybe you want to pass it up.

Risk Factor #5:

Alcohol and Drugs. Common items can be as dangerous as street drugs, which

There is plenty of time in life for a glass of wine…later.

No. No. No. Only meds from your prenatal care provider are okay.

Caffeine? Only one cup & only if you must.

can severely compromise you baby’s future. If you have a drug or alcohol habit, get help.

Risk Factor #6:

Genetics. You can have genetic predispositions for many pregnancy issues. However, that does not necessarily mean you will develop a given disorder. For example, nutrition and exercise greatly reduce the risk and severity of metabolic issues. Some genetic issues are unavoidable however, and your care provider will alert you to these, if they are relevant.

Risk Factor #7:

Social issues — isolation, lack of support, abuse, poverty. All of these factors can have negative effects.

If isolation is a simple matter of needing to meet other moms-to-be, join an exercise program. That way, you get both support and exercise; just be sure it includes aerobics, along with centering, relaxation and appropriate strength.

If your situation is more dire, seek the help of a care provider or social worker at your local hospital or clinic. Safety and support are critical for you at this time. Get the help you need. There are people who care. And, if you know of someone who needs help, help them.

If you have other risk factors to offer, please post them in the comments. Thanks!

What’s next?  BIRTH!!