Entirely unscientific poll about mother’s fitness and birth/pregnancy

[IsTheRainEverComingBack]

Wasn’t sure whether to put this here or in pregnancy?

I’ve been reading a bit about the heathier and physically fitter the mother, the easier the pregnancy and labour. Labour’s perhaps quicker, less complications. I know being healthier is better for getting pregnant, but in your experience do you think your fitness/health, or indeed lack thereof, had an impact on your pregnancy and birth/s?

I’m gearing up to start TTC next year, I’m currently 2 stone ish overweight and really quite unfit. I need to get myself sorted before I start trying to incubate a child. Some motivation that it might make childbirth easier might be helpful 😬

Fit and healthy both times - did the London Triathlon Olympic distance in my first trimester with DS1 and ran the London Marathon a month before conceiving DS2. Naice birth centre birth with DS1 at 41+1, shitshow 3 day induction at 38 weeks with #2.

Im not sure theres that much truth in it because I was at the bottom end of healthy bmi when I had my first: absolutely horrendous three day long induction that I took six months to a year to recover from
I was a stone or so over the healthy bracket of bmi when I had my second and I had a much much easier labour and recovery

I was the least fit I’ve ever been in my adult life when I got pregnant (had to gain weight to qualify for ivf and could only manage it by dramatically reducing the amount of exercise I did). Rough labour and needed 3 days in hospital after.

My sister was very fit through both her pregnancies and had 2 quick, uncomplicated births and a speedy recovery.

However, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly blind luck. Definitely aim for being as fit and strong as possible. Definitely don’t panic about it, or assume it’ll make a massive difference to the actual birth.

And good luck TTC

I agree with previous posters, exercise and fitness is never a bad thing.

However my anecdotal evidence is that it makes no difference to having an easier birth. Look at famous female athletes - Paula Radcliffe ran all the way through her first pregnancy but had a really long difficult labour. Serena Williams has spoken about how awful her emergency cs was and how she nearly died. The muscles which count are your uterine ones, which only get exercised by giving birth.

I think there's a lot of luck involved in childbirth. Fit women can have a wretched time too.
However, I think that the fitter you are before pregnancy the easier it is to get in shape afterwards.

I was very fit before my first pregnancy and continued to run through most of it... I even went for a run on the day I went into labour at 40+9!! That pregnancy, and birth, was genuinely a breeze. Labour was 10 hours from first twinge and an absolutely text book lovely, calm water birth. This time around, I am not fit. I’m not over weight either I just don’t seem to do any exercise anymore! I’m due today, the pregnancy has not been enjoyable in the slightest... backache, trouble sleeping, awful sciatica, reflux, yucky stretch marks, Braxton Hicks, genuine exhaustion, I could go on. It’s put me off having another. Maybe I was just lucky first time round but I’m pretty sure that fitness has a lot to do with it

I was very fit before getting pregnant with DS1. Horrendous 9 months of sickness. Birth was okish. Very painful but nothing serious. However I lost the baby stomach in less than a week - my stomach muscles just pinged back despite eating tons of sugar throughout pregnancy and after birth.

DS2 - not fit at all (DS1 was a very difficult baby). Same 9 months of sickness plus a lot of pain. Birth was fast - less than 2 hours once I got to hospital but very very painful. Took a couple of months to lose the the tummy though...

I was very fit and had exceptionally easy labours but very difficult pregnancies.

(The difficulty of the pregnancies meant that I wasn’t that fit by the time labour rolled around?)