5 Benefits of Prenatal Fitness for Your Baby

Fitness, Prenatal

There is a lot of fear associated with exercising throughout pregnancy. The endless onslaught of unsolicited advice on the safety of exercise–or rather the dangers–can make it hard to feel confident about exercising throughout your pregnancy. Your provider may have even given you restrictions on exercising, such as “keep your heart rate below a certain level” or “don’t lift more than 20lbs.”

So, with all of this, it’s not surprising that you may be fearful on the safety of exercising and may avoid it altogether with the thought of “better safe than sorry.”

But, what if I told you that you can actually be sorry? The benefits of prenatal exercise for your baby were extraordinary–so avoiding exercise could have negative impacts on your baby’s development, both during pregnancy and after birth!

In this blog, we are going to discuss how prenatal exercise is generally safe for you AND your baby, and what the benefits of prenatal exercise are for your baby!

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What are the risks of exercising throughout your pregnancy for baby??

The concern with exercising tends to revolve around fears surrounding the risk of miscarriage, the risk of preterm labor, and the negative impacts on your baby’s growth–all of which are not true. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that exercising, including lifting weights and exercising in the first trimester, does not increase the risk of miscarriage, cause preterm labor, or negatively impact your baby’s growth.

The first concerns revolve around exercise negatively impacting your pregnancy length with either miscarriage or preterm labor.

Miscarriage is commonly due to a chromosomal abnormality–so there is nothing you could have done to cause the miscarriage, and also there is nothing you could have done to prevent the loss. Miscarriage is tragic and is already such a hard experience to have to go through–that this made-up notion that your exercising was the culprit for your loss only adds to our guilt and shame while trying to navigate our grief. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that miscarriage is NOT caused by exercising, including heavy lifting or vigorous activity in the first trimester (or any trimester).

Preterm labor is not caused by exercising--but if you are experiencing active preterm labor, this would be a contraindication to exercise. Exercise would not be recommended for an already active preterm labor since upright movement could facilitate the labor process–but you can feel confident that exercising does not CAUSE preterm labor.

Another concern is that exercise will negatively impact your baby’s growth–which has been shown to be false. This myth comes from the notion that if you exercise, blood flow will be redirected from the uterus to your muscles, and this decrease in blood flow will affect your baby’s oxygen levels and impact their growth.

Fortunately, studies have shown that babies do not demonstrate that there is a decrease in oxygen during exercise or that they are negatively impacted during exercise. Exercising may introduce new stimuli that could positively impact their brain and nervous system development and improve their ability to respond to stress.

Babies of exercising mothers tend to be leaner at birth! The risk of a baby that is too large or too small is decreased if you exercise throughout your pregnancy too!

The common concerns with exercising throughout pregnancy have been demonstrated to be invalid in research. Exercising does not increase your risk of miscarriage or preterm labor, and does not negatively impact your baby’s growth! So, let’s discuss the benefits of prenatal exercise for your baby, so you can better understand WHY it is so important to intentionally move your body, not only for your comfort and health but also for your baby’s lifelong development.

What are the benefits of exercising throughout your pregnancy for baby?

There are numerous benefits of exercising throughout your pregnancy for your baby! It can improve your baby’s brain and nervous system development, it can improve their resiliency to stressors, and it can increase their blood volume–as just a few of the things.

Not exercising in the mindset of “better safe than sorry” can actually be harmful. There are so many benefits of exercising for your baby, that promoting this notion that it would be “safer” to not exercise when exercise has been repeatedly shown to be safe for the majority of pregnancies, just does not make sense.

Some of the benefits include:

Increased placental functional capacity–placentas tend to be larger and more voluminous if you exercise throughout your pregnancy. This increase in size correlated to improved function, which can optimize nutrient and oxygen flow to your baby.
Increased blood volume of the baby–this increased blood volume means increased oxygenation and resiliency to planned and unplanned stressors.
Improved brain and nervous system development–this translates to increased cognitive function and language skills in the first years of life. Additionally, this contributes to improved motor skills.

Exercising throughout your pregnancy also improves your health, which can improve your birth outcomes. Although this blog is about the benefits for your baby, your health impacts your baby’s experience, as well.

Prenatal exercise can decrease your risk of developing a prenatal complication, such as gestational hypertension or gestational diabetes by nearly 40%. This can reduce the risk of needing a medical induction, which involves more interventions that may or may not negatively impact your birth outcomes. Induction of labor is not risk-free, and some interventions may make labor more stressful for your baby in comparison to spontaneous labor.

Exercising throughout your pregnancy also can decreases the length of your labor, your risk of cesarean birth, and the risk of instrument-assisted delivery, which can improve the birth outcomes for your baby.

Why does it reduce the risk?

It can make labor faster because you tend to be able to move longer in an upright position. Upright positions put more pressure on the cervix which can speed up labor, and movement can help baby wiggle and rock more easily through the pelvis.
It reduces the risk of a c-section because movement could help prevent labor stalls and babies getting “stuck.” In addition, prenatal exercise that focuses on hip mobility and ensuring you can open each pelvic level can help to prevent labor stalls, as well.
One reason for instrument-assisted delivery is maternal fatigue, which is countered if you have increased physical stamina from exercising.

Exercising throughout your pregnancy is incredibly beneficial for both you AND your baby–and there is so much research that supports exercising is SAFE to do throughout your pregnancy, to include the first trimester. There are so many benefits that NOT exercising should not be a recommendation at all.

If you want to workout throughout your pregnancy, but not sure where to start, join our prenatal fitness programs. We offer our programs in three ways:

Teambuildr App, as a list of exercises with short demo videos:
- 40-Week Full Program: these workouts are 45-75 minutes in length and best for someone with gym access who wants to continue to lift throughout their pregnancy.
- 40-Week MINI Program: these workouts are 15-20 minutes in length and best for someone with a busy schedule who wants to workout in either a gym or at home.
Prenatal On-Demand Program, full-length workout videos that you follow along with as you workout:

All of our fitness programs include pelvic stability exercises to keep you comfortable and pain-free, and pelvic opening/pelvic floor exercises to prepare you for birth. You can bundle our fitness programs with our childbirth education course to save 15%!

Prenatal Workouts are SAFE and Beneficial for YOU and your BABY!

Exercising throughout your pregnancy is so beneficial for you and your baby–and the benefits are so impactful that NOT exercising is not the appropriate recommendation. If you tell people to NOT exercise, you are asking them to ignore that exercising can improve their baby’s brain and nervous system development and increase their baby’s blood volume. The increased development in utero is evident in the first few years of life when these babies have increased motor skills, cognitive development, and improved language skills. So, recommending someone be “safe rather than sorry” when research has repeatedly demonstrated that exercise is actually safe, is also asking them to not want to attain all these benefits for their children. I think most of us only want to do what’s best for our children–and if you know the benefits of exercising, it can motivate you to workout!