Exercising while BF - how much can you do?

[smallorange]

Hi am pregnant with no.3 and am huge already mainly due to lack of willpower over Christmas chocs and a craving for cheese and pickle sandwiches.
Anyway, I always gain quite alot of weight during pregnancy, and last time I lost most of it doing British Military Fitness twice a week.
So, I was planning to do the same after no.3 is born, stitches have healed, BF established etc (around 4 months?).
However read in pregnancy book that you shouldn't do intensive exercise during BF as it causes a build up of lactic acid in the milk.
Has anyone experience of this? I did a 10k when DD2 was seven months with no ill-effects. Please don't tell me I have to do farking bums and tums or some such tedious stuff instead.

oh dear cannot compete with the cult orgy thread. Never mind

I'd be interested in the answer too. I am also prgt with no and was running 10k 3 x's a week and are missing it like mad. I really want to get back to it asap after birth as it helps me with depression. After no2 I started tennis and did myslef a mischief so need to take things more slowly this time.

I think I read somewhere that it's a myth that your milk goes 'sour' after intense exercise due to build up of lactic acid. But I suppose if you were worried you could express milk before you exercise to give in a bottle for the first feed after.

yes I find exercise helped me cope with a small baby annd a toddler. I wasn't suffering depression but I did find that a regular hour to myself running or whatever really helped lift my spirirts especially as was feeling a bit down about my appearance post DD2.

God am too lazy to express milk before exercise. It's good to hear it may be a myth though

Another myth

Yes, there is lactic acid in the milk after intense exercise, but it is not harmful and it disappears shortly afterwards anyway....

www.kellymom.com/health/lifestyle/mom-exercise.html

I went back to the gym (gently!) 3 weeks after the birth and was running 5/6 miles plus circuits by the 3/4 month point. The circuits were military ones (DH is in the military and we can use his facilities plus go to lunchtime circuits). DD never had a problem with the milk, and was on 99th centile from the 2 month point onwards! Perhaps just try it and see....even if it does occur hopefully it would only effect one feed.

There does seem to be research evidence that lactic acid can enter the milk, but I really wish someone would explain the proposed mechanism. My understanding of physiology is that lactic acid accumulates locally in individual muscles working under anaerobic conditions -it's lactic acid that causes cramp and the 'burn' from intense exercise. I'm not sure it enters the bloodstream much, and breasts aren't very muscly. It's always puzzled me and I've never seen a suggested explanation.

Oh, and I agree with Tiktok. Exercise is fine .

I am so glad to hear this as regular exercise is my strategy for staying sane while coping with three children under five.

The exercise is pretty intense but I will be in the bottom group for quite a while as will be recovering from C-section. Thanks everyone.

Sorry for being flippant but I did think for a mo that you were pondering on exercise whilst actually feeding a baby, at which I would be impressed.

Mind you, I remember the NCT catalogue having a hilarious picture of a woman taped up to a double battery powered breast pump whilst wearing a business suit and gazing intelligently at some spreadsheets. I am obviously not putting in enough effort.

Well actually Georgimama, that was my next question....

I once expressed at lunchtime during an all day selection/interview event where I was going to be doing an assessed presentation next. I was in the disabled loo with my breast pump, marker pens and flip chart....multi tasking at its best

I went back to spin-fit, combat and body attack when ds was about 4-5 mths old,and running when he was 6mths and he never seemed to have a problem with my milk! Only thing I was told was that you still have loads of relaxin in your body so it's easy to overstretch and strain ligaments (like I did- achilles tendon injury soon put paid to my marathin-running aspirations!) so you might need some extra warm-up/ cool down, and be careful with the stretches/ hi-impact stuff

And invest in a very good sportsbra! Nursing bra's are really not good for anything more active than baby yoga...

smallorange - you did 10 k when your DD was 7 months! wow! Don't think there are any restrictions on exercise, but I did suddenly lose a ton of weight, and about this time, DS (exclusively b/f at the time) lost some weight. Maybe it wasn't connected, but a bit of a coincidence I saw a personal trainer who is quite clued up about post natal stuff and he said that I shouldn't have been on such a drastic program.

But much would depend on how fit you were pre pregnancy...

I was running those distances from about the 4/5 month period post birth; I think as long as you drink and eat plenty you should be fine although I guess everyone would be different. I ran a 10k whilst 6 months pregnant, and was on the cross trainer on my due date (VERY gently!) which may be way dd always slept better in motion.....