Worried about exercise in heat...

[SeatOfMyPants]

17/18w. We're on a walking holiday in Spain. Most days we've done 9-13k so not massive distances and always taken my time. Yesterday it got a bit hotter than it was meant to towards the end of the day but I managed ok.


Today was boiling - again, wasn't meant to be. We set out in the morning so when it was cooler but by the time we were half way through it was seriously hot and there was little shade. I had tons of water, hat, sun cream - I found it very tiring so we stopped for short breaks regularly and we broke for lunch and sat for a half hour. I was never sick, faint or shaky but I can't help thinking that did some damage. Temperatures must have been 33-35 for the last 2 hours of the walk and I had a headache at the end that's very mild but I can't get rid of it.

Does anyone know if I should be looking out for any warning signs or anything re overheatinh? Feel stupid.

[EpoxyResin]

Please, don't dwell too much on the worry of overheating. The human body is incredibly adept at regulating your core temperature, so despite your feeling hot, your core temperature isn't likely to have varied much from your norm. The body is also great at adapting to pregnancy - a bit of walking in the sun is unlikely to jeopardise that.

As far as I understand the danger in overheating is when your body is unable to regulate your core temperature; for example when you have a high fever your actual core body temperature is high for an extended time, and you don't cool down.

To a degree you could worry about environments like hot-tubs or saunas because your usual methods for cooling down won't work (i.e. sweating) so over time your core temperature will start to rise, but that will be over a good long time and you won't be without symptoms; faintness, nausea etc. So mostly you're only told to worry about heat from an over-cautious perspective. Unless you've had a fever of 39/40 degrees for some time you're extremely unlikely to have done any damage at all.

[AHedgehogCanNeverBeBuggered]

What Epoxy said - it's your core temp that's important, not how hot you feel (although it can be mighty uncomfortable obviously with a mini-radiator on board!).