Early pregnancy worries

[peps2917]

Hi all

Starting this thread to see if anyone is on the same boat. I found out I’m pregnant last week and I’m now 4+2 so extremely early.

I am 35 so I am being very cautious about it all and I don’t want to get excited too early. I know that worrying is pointless, yet I also know that miscarriages are very common.

I am a very active person and my doctor has said I can continue running and exercising as usual, but I cannot help worry that my choices might increase the possibility of miscarriage. I run most days and I love staying active by doing Pilates too.

Does anyone have any tips/ advice at all? Should I carry on as I am (as per advised by my doctor) and just listen to my body? Should I avoid anything?

I will book myself in for a private scan at 8 weeks but until then I intend to just keep myself distracted…

I hope to hear back from some of you!

Congratulations on your pregnancy! You have expressed a couple of concerns, one being your level of exercise and the other being general anxieties around viability of pregnancy.

You are supposed to be able to carry on exercising, however you might not feel like it if you suffer from any symptoms like morning sickness or fatigue in the first trimester. Your body will be working super hard building a placenta in the first weeks and it takes a lot of resources. I would just keep in tune with your body and do the exercise you feel like doing, eat regularly. I was reasonably active, swam twice a week and personally passed out onto someone's lap on my morning commute after what would have been a normal pool work out for me at 16 weeks and it was simply because my blood vessels had expanded and my blood pressure plummeted. I started to feel more and more light headed after I got out the pool, it wasn't during the exercise rather afterwards. I started to slow down after that, in time I began to become much more out of breath just walking up stairs and the worst was suddenly stopping after walking, I could feel all my blood chugging around my body.

In terms of anxieties around miscarriage, the first trimester is the most vulnerable time for this. It is literally a case of waiting for each appointment, taking each day as it comes, avoiding the obvious things like alcohol and uncooked meats, soft cheeses etc (Google the stuff to avoid), eat well and regularly if you can and don't suffer from the morning sickness. It is a time for to your body to really lay the foundations. Going back to anxieties, you might enjoy keeping a pregnancy diary and tracking symptoms, it can help with feeling alone if you aren't ready to share news just yet.

@Dwells thank you - that’s really helpful. I have the Flo app and have been logging symptoms and it does help!

Great to hear about exercise. At the moment my only symptom is fatigue, bloating and VERY mild sickness for like 15 mins in the morning luckily! Hopefully it won’t be too bad but I know it is very bad for most people.

Thanks again!

In general most moderate exercise is fine IF you did it before pregnancy. You should try to maintain fitness rather than push yourself. You should avoid getting too hot (the same rationale as avoiding hot baths).

Re other pregnancy worries - you can join every pregnant woman ever. Everyone worries about miscarriage, and other bad things. You just have to put them aside. Worries are only a problem if you focus on them. It's only going to get worse once they're born so try to see pregnancy as a training programme in worry management!

I am about 1 week ahead of you. It’s my first pregnancy so I can’t claim to know much but I have had the same worries regarding running! I know they say it’s fine but I couldn’t quite convince myself!

The Nike Run Club app has a few pregnancy guided runs. I recently did the first trimester one and it really helped put my mind at rest! They talk about the benefits of running throughout but also encourage you to listen to your body. I plan to run at least a few times a week but they say to keep it at a conversational pace so I think I’ll stick to easy 30 minute runs for the time being.

Hope it all goes well for you. I’m pretty sure these first 12 weeks will be the longest 12 weeks of our lives!