Exercising during pregnancy can be extremely beneficial for you and your baby. Regular exercise during pregnancy can boost your mood, improve sleep, and reduce aches and pains associated with pregnancy. Exercising while pregnant can help prevent pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. It also keeps your body strong so that you are more likely to lose the baby weight faster after pregnancy as well. After all muscle burns more than fat and if we lose all our muscle mass during pregnancy we will have to work on building it up again after delivery. Or we could work to maintain it during pregnancy by applying these best exercises during pregnancy to our daily routine.
Some of the exercises that are best involve increasing heart rate, keeping you flexible, managing weight gain , and maintains muscle mass without causing undo stress to you or the baby. Will all exercise programs you should listen to your body and not put too much stress on it.
These exercises are generally safe but be sure to consult your health care provider before starting any exercise program.
Walking
Walking is a great pregnancy workout. It is low impact so it doesn't jar your knees or ankles. It is a moderate intensity exercise and will help keep your blood sugar stable. It is also probably the easiest exercise to do because it requires no equipment besides some good tennis shoes and you can do it anywhere.
Swimming
Swimming is a wonderful exercise during pregnancy. It works your large and small muscle groups and provides cardiovascular benefits but it low impact because you are in water. Swimming is hailed as one of the best exercises you can do while pregnant because it has the capability to greatly increase the amount of oxygen your body can transport without much risk of injury. there are some precautions that need to be taken however as to the kind of stroke you do and what types of chemicals are in the pool you are using. When possible swim in non treated pools or lakes. Here is an article that talks about some more things to consider when trying to swim safely.
Low Impact Aerobics
Aerobics that are low impact help strengthen your body and keep your heart strong. This with any cardio exercise has been shown to increase the size of the placenta enabling more oxygen and nutrients to get to the baby. This also enable you to have more stamina during labor and delivery.
Dancing
This has many of the same effects as aerobics…but you get to have tons of fun. You could join a group and get to know other pregnant moms. While dancing during pregnancy try to avoid dancing that would create very jerky movements. You may not want to do this after your belly starts getting to big.
Yoga
Yoga helps maintain muscle mass and keep you flexible and strong. Prenatal yoga has been shown to improve sleep, reduce stress and anxiety, increase the strength, flexibility, and endurance of muscles needed during childbirth, decrease lower back pain, decrease nausea, Decrease shortness of breath. It also decreases the risk of pre-term labor, pregnancy induced hypertension and intrauterine growth restriction. Make sure when seeking out yoga you get into a class designed for pregnant moms.
Stretching
Stretching is great to keep you flexible and limber and keep your muscles from being strained. Stretching can be very beneficial to relief pain or tension during the many changes your body goes through during pregnancy. Make sure to find a stretch tailored to your specific needs.
Weight training
Weight training is usually best if it is low impact and you have already been doing weight workouts. Reduce the amount of weights you are lifting or make sure you are doing controlled slow movements. A good thing for weight training would be to do body weight exercises with many repetitions instead of higher weights and lower reps.
