Has anyone miscarried after strenuous activity?

[Cass168]

Everyone knows that pregnant women are not meant to lift anything heavy, but does anyone think they miscarried after doing something strenuous?
I'm interested as I recently miscarried at 9 weeks. The morning before I started spotting I took my DS to soft play - he's a large but not very mobile toddler and wanted to go in the 'big kids' bit, so I ended up lifting him up steps, crawling through tubes etc. I didn't think anything of it at the time but noticed that afternoon I felt exhausted and felt I'd used muscles I hadn't in a very long time. (Don't judge me, I don't do a lot of exercise!) I started spotting that evening which sadly led to full m/c.
I've come to terms with the miscarriage and realise that I'll never know what caused it - it may well have nothing to do with soft play, but I'd be interested to hear other people's experiences.

Hi Cass, I am so sorry to hear about your mc.

I had a mc after being incredibly careful all through my pg to that point as I was totally paranoid about all the pg related rules including the not lifting rules. And then I later had a healthy pg with my dd despite doing exactly what you describe in your post and crawling all over soft play with my toddler ds plus carrying him upstairs tantrumming etc. I got worried about this and asked the dr and was told the not lifting thing is more to protect your body from damage which you are very vulnerable to when pg due to the extra relaxin.

Perhaps you were so very tired and achey because your body was already starting to mc before the soft play?

I will never know what caused my mc but I suspect various health conditions contributed - I can totally relate to having a need to understand it.

Thanks Craster and sorry for your loss too .
I never considered that the tiredness might not have been the soft play, so that's food for thought.

I exercised a lot in pregnancy so did a lot if research. M/C due to exertion is almost entirely unheard of in the first two trimesters. The advise about lifting is to protect the mother's back and hips/pelvis which can be very unstable in pregnancy.

The reason I think the fired/achey feeling might have been the mc already starting before you went to soft play is that I had a mmc so didn't know I had mc for a few weeks but was bone tired and cramps and achey all over - I just felt generally unwell and I didn't get that in either subsequent healthy pg.

If you wanted to talk this over then the midwives on the Tommys helpline would be very happy to discuss it with you I'm sure. They get calls on all aspects of pg and loss including mc and still birth and have been amazing when I called them (very knowledgeable and empathetic).

There's almost zero chance (perhaps zero chance) that your MC was in any way caused by over exertion. Already healthy pregnancies are pretty robust and there is basically nothing you can do to make a healthy pregnancy (except not getting blind drunk on a daily basis/doing drugs/smoking 50-a-day etc, obviously). You didn't do anything at all to make this happen xxxxxx

Thank you all :-)
That's interesting again Craster - once I'd finished having the m/c I remember saying to my DH that I actually felt better than I had in ages. And I certainly don't remember feeling tired to the point of exhaustion with my first pregnancy.
Ah well, just one of those crappy things life throws at you. Since it happened I've lost a bit of weight, eating better and generally being kind to myself, so feeling positive at the moment.