Exercising Whilst Pregnant

Exercising During Pregnancy

Regular physical activity during pregnancy offers many benefits for both you and your growing baby.

Here's how exercise supports your pregnancy:

Improved Physical Fitness: Exercise helps maintain muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance, making it easier to handle the physical demands of pregnancy. Your body will be better equipped to support the weight of your baby, manage the increased blood volume, and adapt to posture changes.

Enhanced Mood and Energy Levels: Exercise releases endorphins, natural mood boosters that combat fatigue and elevate your spirits. This can help manage pregnancy-related stress, anxiety, and mood swings.

Reduced Risk of Pregnancy Complications: Regular physical activity may lower the risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and cesarean delivery. It can also help manage pregnancy-related discomforts like back pain and constipation.

Tailoring Your Exercise Routine

While exercise is generally beneficial during pregnancy, it's essential to listen to your body and gradually increase your activity levels. Sandwell’s Changes programme offers FREE prenatal exercise classes for all pregnant women living in Sandwell.

Free sessions include:

Mamilates

Sweaty Mamilates is low impact sessions for pre-natal women. The focus is on effective posture, tone, strength & simply taking a moment!

Sweaty Mamilates is a great way to keep active during pregnancy. The workout is specifically designed to support your body prenatally. You can keep it low to begin with and it’s lots of fun too.

Aquanatal

Aquanatal classes are a fabulous activity for moms-to-be. They are expertly designed programmes that take a holistic approach to an expectant moms’ physical and mental well-being, combining relaxation with cardiovascular exercises to help prepare the body for birth.

Aquanatal is not recommended for moms-to-be in their first trimester who are not accustomed to water based exercises. If you are in your second or third trimester aquanatal is considered to be a safe exercise if you are new to exercising in water or are accustomed to it.

Don't Ignore your Pelvic Floor

These fun, friendly and informative sessions are delivered by a qualified physiotherapist and will teach you all about the importance of pelvic health pre and post birth!

This session covers:

Gravity positions and your pelvic floor muscles
Bowel and bladder health
Breaking the myths do's and don'ts for optimum pelvic health