Pregnancy Exercise Safety

Included in this Blog

There are three sections to this blog. One is for moms-to-be, the second for pregnancy fitness teachers and personal trainers and the third includes 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 is available at http://dancingthrupregnancy.com.

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.

Second, 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…

• balanced, neutral posture
• deep or rhythmic breathing
• mindfulness
• safe range of motion

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..

• take a pulse
• assess perceived exertion (RPE)

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.

• steps with leg gestures and/or arm gestures increase intensity
• size affects intensity of movement
• speed affects intensity of movement
• jumping increases the ground force or impact on the joints
• stepping up (e.g., step aerobics or stair climbing) increases intensity
• some effort/shapes are ballistic and should be avoided
• movement needs to be modified for each woman’s comfort

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 blood stream 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.

Splint by crossing arms and pulling toward center

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

Effects of Prenatal Yoga – How to Assess?

What are the effects of yoga on pregnancy and birth outcomes?

For more than 30 years, DTP has included exercise components that are elements of yoga (centering, deep breathing, mindfulness/transcendence, isometrics and relaxation) because these are measurable, effective components within a total fitness package.  Cardiovascular conditioning is our centerpiece – along with specific strength work – since these produce most of the benefits of prenatal fitness. Due to the growing popularity of prenatal yoga at the expense of cardiovascular conditioning and strength training, we have been seeking credible research evidence about yoga’s effect on pregnancy, birth and recovery.

Despite the length of time it has been available, there is little data to establish yoga’s efficacy beyond reducing some discomforts and perhaps improving body trust, often through the use of positions, breathing skills and mindfulness that are also common childbirth preparation and comfort measures. The relaxation element – achievable through any standard alpha brain wave producing method – can help promote progress in early labor, as the Relaxation Response (per Benson) is known to help the body release oxytocin in early labor (per Odent). However, the only study of the correlation among labor onset, yoga and the length of the first stage was very small. It was performed in Thailand and we cannot find any record of exactly what was performed during the six sessions over the course of pregnancy.

Yoga during pregnancy: effects on maternal comfort, labor pain and birth outcomes. Chuntharapat S, et al. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2008 May;14(2):105-15. Epub 2008 Mar 4.

This study examined the effects of a yoga program on maternal comfort, labor pain, and birth outcomes. 74-primigravid Thai women were randomized. The yoga program involved six, 1-h sessions at prescribed weeks of gestation. A variety of instruments were used to assess maternal comfort, labor pain and birth outcomes. The experimental group was found to have a shorter duration of the first stage of labor. No differences were found, between the groups, regarding pethidine usage, labor augmentation or newborn Apgar scores at 1 and 5 min.

We also found a small, non-randomized study that indicated chronic practice of yoga produces similar affects.

Effects of a prenatal yoga programme on the discomforts of pregnancy and maternal childbirth self-efficacy in Taiwan. Sun YC, et al. Midwifery. 2010 Dec;26(6):e31-6. Epub 2009 Feb 25.

This non-randomized study aimed to provide yoga to primigravidas in the third trimester of pregnancy to decrease discomforts associated with pregnancy and increase childbirth self-efficacy. Low risk, sedentary primigravidas were targeted. The program was 12-14 weeks, with at least three sessions per week. Each workout lasted for 30 minutes. Program participants reported significantly fewer pregnancy discomforts than the control group (38.28 vs 43.26, z=-2.58, p=0.01) at 38-40 weeks of gestation and exhibited higher outcome and self-efficacy expectancies during the active stage of labour (104.13 vs 83.53, t=3.24, p=0.002; 99.26 vs 77.70, t=3.99, p ≤ 0.001) and the second stage of labour (113.33 vs 88.42, t=3.33, p=0.002; 102.19 vs 79.40, t=3.71, p ≤ 0.001) compared with the control group. Interestingly, the researchers concluded that the provision of booklets and videos on yoga during pregnancy may contribute to a reduction in pregnancy discomforts and improved childbirth self-efficacy.

Efficacy of yoga on pregnancy outcome. Narendran S, et al.  J Altern Complement Med. 2005 Apr;11(2):237-44.

The only matched-control study we have seen that reports any beneficial outcomes for yoga participants vs. controls was a small study conducted in India. Women participated daily in supervised 1-hour sessions, while controls walked. The daily yoga participants’ outcomes were improved compared with controls, including a reduction in IUGR, in conjunction with infection and PIH. It is important to keep in mind that these outcomes occurred in a setting where under-weight, over-work and infection-related complications are common.

It is interesting to note that aerobic fitness provides the same benefits as those seen in these studies, while also reducing the need for augmentation or other interventions, as well as reducing the risk of fetal distress.

During the second stage of labor, the transition to an ergotropic reflex promotes the release of oxytocin as the body changes from a parasympathetic state in the first stage to a sympathetic state in the second stage (that is why we call the end of the first stage transition). The physiology of pushing requires a very aggressive approach. Our in-house data suggest that we have found a balance for helping women develop the necessary traits to accomplish both the passive state required by the first stage and the endurance capacity to become aggressive during expulsion. We measure this in the reduction of our cesarean rate by 1/2 to 1/3 compared to the local population.

There is evidence of inverse risk for cesarean as the amount and intensity of aerobic conditioning increases. These studies are also fairly small, although they are numerous and have produced consistent results concerning dose-effect. There is growing interest within the health care field that supporting prenatal aerobics could help reduce the cesarean rate. There is no information from any credible sources concerning the relationship of yoga to type of birth. The only available statistical information is the coincidental correlation that as the cesarean rate has risen in the U.S., so has the population that participates in prenatal yoga.

Yoga remains an illusive subject of study. So much depends on who is teaching and what they are teaching. Unlike aerobics, strength, range of motion, relaxation response, balance, coordination and training specificity – all of which we can prescribe and measure – the popular term yoga has lost meaning. How much of exactly what is necessary to produce effects? What are those effects? Are they beneficial? These questions are yet to be answered.

Safe Pregnancy, Safe Labor, Safe Motherhood

The challenges to safe motherhood vary depending where in the world you live. In some areas the challenge may be to get adequate nutrition or clean water; in other areas, it may be to prevent infection; and in still other locations it may be trying to avoid pregnancy before your body is ready or getting access to prenatal care. In the U.S., it may mean avoiding being sedentary and making poor food choices, or having to deal with the high technology environment of medical birth that can sabotage the innate physiological process of labor and birth.

Birth begins the bonding or unique love between mother and child.

The biology of birth is a complex series of cause-effect processes…baby’s brain releases chemical signals to the mother and the placenta begins to manifest the maternal immune system’s rejection of the fetus.

To help the ball get rolling, relaxation (the trophotropic response) helps promote the release of oxytocin. With the help of gravity, the head presses on the cervix, amplifying the uterine contractions. After an ultra-distance aerobic endurance test, the cervix opens enough to let the baby move into the vagina and the mother’s discomfort moves from sharp cramping into the bony structure as she transitions to the strength test of pushing. She transitions. Relaxation modulates into an ergotropic – adrenal – response to gather her power.

Pushing is an interesting term…more masculine, I think, than the one I prefer:  Releasing. Releasing or letting go of the baby. It’s a catharsis. In this portion of the labor another set of important processes help the baby clear its lungs of amniotic fluid, stimulate its adrenal system and challenge its immune system, as the contractions drive the baby downward. The mother’s deep transverse abdominal muscles – if strong enough – squeeze the uterus like a tube of tooth paste, to aid this expulsion. In the meantime, the labor is helping set up the mother to fall in love and produce milk. When the baby emerges and moves onto the mother’s chest, s/he smells and tastes the mother, recognizing her mother’s flavor and setting up the potential for bonding.

Any way you slice it, there are two parts to safe motherhood. One is a safe pregnancy…healthy nutrition, physical fitness, safe water, infection prevention, support and a safe environment. The other is a safe labor. In a safe labor, there is both an environment that promotes the natural process of labor and the means necessary for medical assistance when needed. Women die at an alarming rate from pregnancy or birth-related problems. Despite some progress made in recent years, women continue to die every minute as a result of being pregnant or giving birth.

What keeps us from having a better record on motherhood is often lack of care in the developing world and too much intervention in the U.S.. They are two sides of a coin. Mothers’ experience and health needs are not on equal footing with other cultural values. In places where basic prenatal care or family planning are low priorities, at-risk women are vulnerable to the physical stresses of pregnancy and birth. In the U.S., machine-measured data is paramount, even if it produces high rates of false positives, unnecessary interventions or counterproductive procedures. We are learning that obesity and sedentary lifestyles have detrimental effects, but fewer pregnant women than their non-pregnant counterparts exercise.

Despite the money spent to support the technological model of pregnancy and birth in the U.S., there are parts of the world – especially Scandinavia, Northern Europe and parts of the Mediterranean and Middle East (Greece, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Italy and Croatia) – with lower rates of maternal deaths. In fact, in the U.S., maternal deaths are on the rise.

It’s a tricky business. Clearly Western medicine has a lot to offer the developing world when there are medical concerns. On the other hand, importing the U.S. model could create more problems than it solves. Instead, the micro-solutions now being developed in many locations will be observed and evidence collected by organizations such as the White Ribbon Alliance and UNICEF.

There is an effective international midwives model adopted by JHPIEGO, the Johns Hopkins NGO working toward improved birthing outcomes. It assesses the local power structure, social connections, potential for trained birth assistants, and location of available transportation to create a network so that locals will know when a labor is in trouble and who can get the woman to the nearest hospital.

In the U.S., there are in-hospital birth centers that allow low-risk mothers the opportunity to labor and birth in a setting designed to encourage the innate processes. Women are beginning to vote with their feet…staying home for birth. Women are going abroad to give birth. At the same time, women are coming to this country to give birth, believing it is safer than where they are. There are several ways these scenes could play out.

But, I’ll wager, improving outcomes will involve compromise:  Watchfulness and support in most births, plus better ways to assess danger and provide technology. No matter where you live in the world, the solution may be essentially the same.

Active Pregnancy – the rationale

Moving into Motherhood

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.

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 website dancingthrupregnancy.com. You can also read backwards in this blog to get specific ideas. Or, you can seek out local pre/postnatal fitness experts (you can also do this on our 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.

Beyond Yoga

Beyond Yoga

I love Yoga. But…Power Yoga, Hot Yoga, Fast Yoga, Pilates-Yoga, Fresh Yoga, Baby Yoga and even Prenatal Yoga…not so much. I find these phenomena strange.

Why? Well, 40 years ago – when I first learned Yoga – it was a privilege. A person came to Yoga in the search for a meaningful life path. It was a blend of the spiritual and the physical, and it required a commitment to what was revealed within the practice. Before being allowed to take my first class, I had to demonstrate that I already practiced meditation. It was not exercise per se.

It was not adaptable like it is today. Depending on the teacher, you learned an ancient system – Hatha, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Iyengar, or Kundalini. Those were the major methods that have Hindu roots, and those who practiced these art forms knew what they were doing. The teachers themselves had worked on their craft for decades. Today, I know only a few teachers who have a profound grasp of each of these methods.

Why is Yoga so popular?

Is there something within the work itself – even in the diluted forms, hybrid versions and the celebrity/competitive studios – that allows it to thrive in the self-centered, free-wheeling, branding-crazy marketplace of the early 21st century developed world?

I find the answer to this in a strange place:  Zen practice, Bhuddism. One of my favorite notions is from Suzuki’s text Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. “When you feel disagreeable, it is best to sit.” This is an element of nin – constancy – or being present in the moment. Not patience, which requires a rejection of impatience and therefore cannot accept the present as it is. When you sit – just sit period, that’s it – all that is real is the moment. This is at the heart of all spiritual experience.

I’m not an expert in Yoga. I don’t teach Yoga, although I have integrated Yoga-based skills into my work. I have practiced Hatha and Vinyasa over the years enough to learn how certain skills are treated…belly breathing, slow deep breathing, maintaining position and listening to the wisdom of the body, and isometric strengthening in preparation for more expansive shapes or motions. Long ago, I integrated these skills from my Yoga experience into my teaching style because these skills are effective for the populations with which I work. But, I do not teach Yoga.

Can Research Help Us?

Researchers find Yoga a nightmare. There is so much variance now in the practice that findings from any one study cannot be transferred to the general population. One of the most revealing experimental-design studies found that none of the claims of Yoga improving metabolism could be demonstrated. When asked why they thought this outcome had occurred, the teachers who were used in the study said they thought the participants in the study were not fit enough to do Yoga!

One of the most successful Yoga teachers in my area, and one of my favorites, has for decades used a bicycle for her primary mode of transportation. She credits her longevity and success to Yoga. I attribute it to bicycling. Dr. Cooper is right…fitness (which means aerobic fitness) is the biggest bang for the buck. Unless you are fit, it is hard to execute some of the more subtle demands of many exercise regimens.

Some Yoga teachers will say that you can make Yoga aerobic or that some forms are aerobic. OK, then it’s aerobics, not Yoga. Whenever I see “aerobic Yoga” it reminds me of aerobic dancing. It’s helpful to remember that Yoga developed in a time and place where survival was dependent upon fitness. People didn’t need to do more aerobics to find enlightenment. They needed reflection and to be present in the moment.

So, I insist on aerobic fitness as the first goal of a fitness regimen. In the pre/postnatal field, this is the only consistently demonstrated factor in improved outcomes. As a birth preparation there are Yoga-based factors that will help in labor and birth IF THE WOMAN IS FIT ENOUGH. It is the fact that some Yoga-based skills help fit people find nin that is my justification for continuing to use them in conjunction with aerobics and special pre/postnatal preparation and recovery exercises.

But, there are cautions. Not all Yoga assanas (positions) are safe for pregnancy. Down-dog, in particular, scares me because of incidents reported in obstetrical literature in the 1980s and 1990s that indicate such a position is implicated in fatal embolisms. Some shapes are just not doable and others become less comfortable over time. The ones that work have been identified since the 1940s and 1950s and integrated into birth preparation courses.

What’s Next?

All exercise components -

• Mind/Body
• Strength
• Flexibility
• Aerobic or Cardiovascular Fitness

- are necessary for a balanced fitness routine. Too much emphasis on any one factor often results in injury. Aerobics is where the greatest health benefits reside. Recent research has demonstrated that it is physical “fitness” (which we can measure) as opposed to just spending time in physical activity (which can be a wide range of intensities) that is responsible for improved health outcomes. Strength and flexibility training need to be purposive. There are things we don’t need to do unless we are going to play pro football or dance Swan Lake! Mind/Body skills help us recover and prepare.

I for one will be glad when we get beyond yoga and back to cross training!