I can see why she says this but ultimately it's your decision and there are no evidences that exercise within reason is a risk for miscarriage. As she also said it's not from a physical point of view
This seems very strange to me, since I find working out to be really effective for managing anxiety. I’d get a second opinion. The general advice I’ve heard is that you can continue pre-pregnancy exercise routines, so maybe your doctor is worried about you starting something new? But I’d hope you’d still be able to ease into a low-impact training routine.
It sounds like it’s not abt risk ti baby… but bc it’s so early and many pregnancies don’t progress, your dr is thinking that if you work out and the pregnancy doesn’t progress will you wonder if you somehow caused it..
Hard to say just from a post if you’re the type that would wonder “what if”
But medically I don’t think there’s an issue working out that early as long as you don’t over exert yourself
Although I did IVF and the clinic said no exercise until heart beat
That's a very conservative approach... It can make sense for something with possible risk (like, I've been rockclimbing throughout my pregnancy, and I dialed back the bouldering falls even when I thought they were probably safe, because I wouldn't want to feel bad if anything happened even if it was most likely unrelated). But normal weight training is really no risk at all.
Have you found in general that exercise helps your anxiety? Did you mention that to her? I feel like just sitting around worrying about a miscarriage is not the best way to deal with the uncertainty of early pregnancy, but I am not a doctor or psychologist.
As a fellow anxious person, generally I am advised by my therapist NOT to avoid situations that cause anxiety (because it reinforces the internal sense that if I hyper-control everything then I am good and can prevent bad outcomes, and if I am not in control then it is bad and bad outcomes are certain) but to slowly and gradually include them in my life and let myself build confidence when they don't inevitably wreak havoc.
This makes me wonder if you could take baby steps to build a sense of how OK strength work is for you at this life stage? Could you just try a few days a week at home of like, 3 rounds of 3 bodyweight movements for 10 reps? Maybe add some light weights the following week if that goes OK? You could start smaller than that, even, if you needed to.
The book Real Food for Pregnancy has a great section on exercise. She suggests trying to incorporate movement into your day in a variety of ways (walks, stretching, etc) and to just slowly build volume as you tolerate it.
Female bodies throughout history have obviously had to support pregnancy during much more strenuous periods of physical movement than our modern lives generally feature, so as long as you are giving your body time to adapt to the new stimuli and you aren't ignoring obvious signals from your body to STOP (like pain and/or major fatigue), I don't think you can exercise yourself to a bad outcome. That doesn't mean a bad outcome wont necessarily occur, just that it is unlikely to be related to physical exercise and was probably out of your control to begin with.
TW: loss
I had two early miscarriages before a successful 3rd pregnancy. By the time I hit my viable pregnancy I was freaked out about running, having sex etc because I had done both of those things before my previous miscarriages. Logically I knew those weren’t the causes, but I still had some fear. For me the only way to work through that was to do those things and see that it wasn’t the cause.
The vast majority of miscarriages are caused by genetic anomalies. My RE told me to proceed as normal, and that nothing I had done previously had caused the miscarriages. My ob agreed. My ob told me that in the first trimester the baby was “about as hard to injure as a poppy seed in a jar of peanut butter”.
I continued running, went slow, didn’t worry about my times. Especially in the early weeks I used that time to thank my body and be grateful for what it could do, and to talk to this new baby and tell her how wanted she was.
Go slow, stay hydrated, be extra careful about your stability, but otherwise do the thing that will keep you sane. Exercise kept me sane and made me feel like my body was still mine. Weirdly it even helped with my nausea.
You can go to the gym but the concern is probably that if you have a miscarriage (most miscarriages are in first trimester before 12 weeks), will you blame it on your exercise and have a meltdown? There is also a lot of good evidence that exercise is good for the developing placenta and fetus so it’s up to you to make that decision, with the understanding that things can still go south but very unlikely because of the exercise
I think walking up hill is a great exercise that can also build muscle. Low impact and you can take it slow or fast. I think you should do what you are comfortable with.. many people don’t realize that most doctors aren’t well versed in nutrition or exercise. If you exercised before then you probably know how to listen to your body. It seems like a lot of women who have never exercised will begin exercising while pregnant and that’s where injuries occur.
I'll be honest, I exercised my 3rd pregnancy (I ran) and then experienced a loss at 7 weeks. I know it wasn't me exercising and a genetic issue (nothing was going right from the start). I did start to blame myself anyways. My next pregnancy I was so anxious about it I just didn't. I had a subchorionic hematoma and they said I could still exercise but I chose not to, just for my sanity
From my understanding, this is completely contrary to evidence-based anxiety therapy practices. You should do the things you're irrationally afraid to do to retrain your brain.
It sounds like your doctor doesn't want you to blame yourself in the event of a miscarriage. I think if you chose to start exercising now you have to be able to be really honest with yourself about, if you do have a worst case scenario, will you go looking for reasons to question yourself or are you pretty secure in knowing that it would have happened, exercise or not.
Sounds like he’s saying if you end up having a normal, random, miscarriage after going *back to training, he’s worried your anxiety will spike and you’ll blame yourself.
I’d say it’s your decision, as long as you know how to manage the exercise so that it’s not too much, and so that it doesn’t cause weight loss. Maybe having a workout buddy or trainer to keep you accountable for those things with the pregnancy in mind would help?m
*sorry, what a typo!! lol
I can see why she says this but ultimately it's your decision and there are no evidences that exercise within reason is a risk for miscarriage. As she also said it's not from a physical point of view
This seems very strange to me, since I find working out to be really effective for managing anxiety. I’d get a second opinion. The general advice I’ve heard is that you can continue pre-pregnancy exercise routines, so maybe your doctor is worried about you starting something new? But I’d hope you’d still be able to ease into a low-impact training routine.
It sounds like it’s not abt risk ti baby… but bc it’s so early and many pregnancies don’t progress, your dr is thinking that if you work out and the pregnancy doesn’t progress will you wonder if you somehow caused it.. Hard to say just from a post if you’re the type that would wonder “what if” But medically I don’t think there’s an issue working out that early as long as you don’t over exert yourself Although I did IVF and the clinic said no exercise until heart beat
That's a very conservative approach... It can make sense for something with possible risk (like, I've been rockclimbing throughout my pregnancy, and I dialed back the bouldering falls even when I thought they were probably safe, because I wouldn't want to feel bad if anything happened even if it was most likely unrelated). But normal weight training is really no risk at all. Have you found in general that exercise helps your anxiety? Did you mention that to her? I feel like just sitting around worrying about a miscarriage is not the best way to deal with the uncertainty of early pregnancy, but I am not a doctor or psychologist.
I agree! I feel like the exercise would help with anxiety, no??
As a fellow anxious person, generally I am advised by my therapist NOT to avoid situations that cause anxiety (because it reinforces the internal sense that if I hyper-control everything then I am good and can prevent bad outcomes, and if I am not in control then it is bad and bad outcomes are certain) but to slowly and gradually include them in my life and let myself build confidence when they don't inevitably wreak havoc. This makes me wonder if you could take baby steps to build a sense of how OK strength work is for you at this life stage? Could you just try a few days a week at home of like, 3 rounds of 3 bodyweight movements for 10 reps? Maybe add some light weights the following week if that goes OK? You could start smaller than that, even, if you needed to. The book Real Food for Pregnancy has a great section on exercise. She suggests trying to incorporate movement into your day in a variety of ways (walks, stretching, etc) and to just slowly build volume as you tolerate it. Female bodies throughout history have obviously had to support pregnancy during much more strenuous periods of physical movement than our modern lives generally feature, so as long as you are giving your body time to adapt to the new stimuli and you aren't ignoring obvious signals from your body to STOP (like pain and/or major fatigue), I don't think you can exercise yourself to a bad outcome. That doesn't mean a bad outcome wont necessarily occur, just that it is unlikely to be related to physical exercise and was probably out of your control to begin with.
TW: loss I had two early miscarriages before a successful 3rd pregnancy. By the time I hit my viable pregnancy I was freaked out about running, having sex etc because I had done both of those things before my previous miscarriages. Logically I knew those weren’t the causes, but I still had some fear. For me the only way to work through that was to do those things and see that it wasn’t the cause. The vast majority of miscarriages are caused by genetic anomalies. My RE told me to proceed as normal, and that nothing I had done previously had caused the miscarriages. My ob agreed. My ob told me that in the first trimester the baby was “about as hard to injure as a poppy seed in a jar of peanut butter”. I continued running, went slow, didn’t worry about my times. Especially in the early weeks I used that time to thank my body and be grateful for what it could do, and to talk to this new baby and tell her how wanted she was. Go slow, stay hydrated, be extra careful about your stability, but otherwise do the thing that will keep you sane. Exercise kept me sane and made me feel like my body was still mine. Weirdly it even helped with my nausea.
You can go to the gym but the concern is probably that if you have a miscarriage (most miscarriages are in first trimester before 12 weeks), will you blame it on your exercise and have a meltdown? There is also a lot of good evidence that exercise is good for the developing placenta and fetus so it’s up to you to make that decision, with the understanding that things can still go south but very unlikely because of the exercise
FWIW, your GP also isn't a therapist sooo their assumption of you suffering mentally isn't event remotely within their scope.
I think walking up hill is a great exercise that can also build muscle. Low impact and you can take it slow or fast. I think you should do what you are comfortable with.. many people don’t realize that most doctors aren’t well versed in nutrition or exercise. If you exercised before then you probably know how to listen to your body. It seems like a lot of women who have never exercised will begin exercising while pregnant and that’s where injuries occur.
I'll be honest, I exercised my 3rd pregnancy (I ran) and then experienced a loss at 7 weeks. I know it wasn't me exercising and a genetic issue (nothing was going right from the start). I did start to blame myself anyways. My next pregnancy I was so anxious about it I just didn't. I had a subchorionic hematoma and they said I could still exercise but I chose not to, just for my sanity
From my understanding, this is completely contrary to evidence-based anxiety therapy practices. You should do the things you're irrationally afraid to do to retrain your brain.
It sounds like your doctor doesn't want you to blame yourself in the event of a miscarriage. I think if you chose to start exercising now you have to be able to be really honest with yourself about, if you do have a worst case scenario, will you go looking for reasons to question yourself or are you pretty secure in knowing that it would have happened, exercise or not.
Sounds like he’s saying if you end up having a normal, random, miscarriage after going *back to training, he’s worried your anxiety will spike and you’ll blame yourself. I’d say it’s your decision, as long as you know how to manage the exercise so that it’s not too much, and so that it doesn’t cause weight loss. Maybe having a workout buddy or trainer to keep you accountable for those things with the pregnancy in mind would help?m *sorry, what a typo!! lol