Exercising Precautions that You Must Follow during First Trimester of Pregnancy

Exercise is important during pregnancy for staying healthy as it improves the muscle strength and flexibility along with the quality of sleep. However, you need to guard against overstraining yourself as your condition is vulnerable as you are carrying your baby. If you are wondering about exercising in the first trimester of pregnancy, follow the precautions given here for you and your baby’s safety:

Exercise Precaution Tips for First Trimester Pregnancy

• Guard against overheating – The first thing you need to watch out for while exercising is that your body should not get overheated. You will find your body getting heated faster than before. You might find yourself down with sudden flush. Keep a jug of cool water handy when exercising or better still, take a break for some time if this happens. Avoid all types of hot baths as they will raise your body temperature.
• Precautions in prenatal yoga – The forms of yoga that put too much strain on your body or raise the body temperature need to be avoided in the first trimester pregnancy. The vigorous ashtanga or vinyasa flow classes should be avoided too if you are not a practitioner already. Choose a prenatal yoga class which has specifically designed workouts for your condition. What’s more, you can get an experienced instructors adept in modifying the yoga poses to suit your condition, and they would prescribe yogic exercises most beneficial and suitable to first pregnancy trimester.
• Monitor your heart rate – When you work out during the first trimester of your pregnancy, make sure your heart rate does not go beyond 140 beats per minute. If heart rate is higher than this, it can restrict the flow of oxygen to your baby and cause birth defects. So, overstraining yourself while exercising during first trimester of pregnancy can not only result in overheating, but it can also harm your baby. If you are able to talk while exercising, it means your heart rate is under control. If that is not the case, you need to slow down.
• Managing a medical condition – If you have a medical condition, such as preterm delivery, miscarriage, severe anaemia, preeclampsia, high blood pressure, overweight, underweight, or diabetes, be especially careful while exercising. It would be advisable that you inform your yoga instructor about your condition and ask him to make you perform very mild exercises that do not aggravate your condition.

Although exercise can be very beneficial for expecting moms, there are some who should not consider it. Excessive vaginal bleeding, threatened miscarriage, cervical weakness, serious heart or lung disease, placenta praevia are some conditions which render exercise useless for pregnancy fitness in first trimester.

Read more articles on Pregnancy First Trimester.