OK to play badminton in pregnancy?

[cheeky]

My friend has asked me to start playing badminton with her as she used to play regularly and is missing it. I'm just a bit worried about whether it's okay for her to play. She is 7 weeks pregnant.

Yes it is OK.

She has had a couple of miscarriages before, does thsi make a difference

She wants to play tomorrow so any more comments from anyone else? She has had two very early miscarriages before? Does this increase the risk?

Sort of related but very different (and no history of miscarriage) a friend of mine wondered whether continue shooting (yes, real guns) during her pregnancy. Her coach suggested it might not be a good idea but her mind was made up for her when she found it was making her shoulder hurt more than usual fairly early in pregnancy. I guess her body decided for her.

I play badminton in local leagues; some of the players I play against are county level so a pretty high standard. I continued playing until I was 6 or 7 months pregnant with each of my four. Doctors said it was perfectly OK. Have heard of some badminton players continuing right up to the end but I personally was too uncomfortable to do that.

I did get lots of comments about "is it safe" and some worried partners (I play doubles) especially when I was lungeing for shots.

Where is your friend based? - cos if she's near me I won't be frightened to play her!

If she has already had 2 miscarriages I wouldn't play as they say that you should really rest during the first trimester if you have a mc hystory.

Exercise is safer from 4-5 months onwards as the baby is already formed.

I wouldn't play also because if something else happens again I would feel extremely guilty.

But then this is my opinion...

i have had a miscarriage,then 7 months later ended up pregnant again,the dr. told me to do normal activity as you would any other time,sudden change in your activity could be more risk.the best thing to do is also to sleep on your left. your blood flows more better he said.my second pregnancy went 100% better.as befor i changed every thing i did,my eating habbits,my activity,and excercise.GOOD LUCK!!!!

I am pregnant (14 weeks) and still play badminton once a week - despite an early (unrelated) scare. When I had my scare I mentioned that I was concerned about playing to the doctor (this was in week 7) and he said that it should be absolutely fine and light exercise is actually a really good idea. He did warn me stop if I became light headed, noticed my heart racing, unusually out of breath and/or felt generally unwell - but to be honest that is just common sense. I would tell her to enjoy herself and just do as much as she feels comfortable - and keep up her fluids if she is getting hot. Have fun.

That's interesting about "heart racing". I found this a couple of times after I returned to playing badminton a few weeks after giving birth. It was a bit frightening at the time although as it went away quickly I didn't do anything about it. Won't be so worried if it happens again.

judetheobscure - would say the heart racing thing would likely be connected with anaemia - this is a symptom, and you may well have been a little low on iron post delivery.
Your body is very clever, and will tell you to slow down if it needs to (as SueW's friend found out). The badminton will be fine - previous miscarriage or not

That's intersting leese - immediately post-delivery the midwives were raving about how high my blood count was (13 something?); that's not to say it didn't slip in the following weeks. Perhaps more chocolate would do the trick?

Thanks for all your replies. We did actually play badminton and she was fine, didn't get tired or anything whereas I was exhausted after 5 minutes

Well judetheobscure, it was probably OK then (13 IS good), but maybe if you were used to running along with a much higher level, you were feeling the effects anyway. When you say your iron level was checked immediately post delivery, how soon after out of interest?
Whatever, you must be very healthy to have such a good level - but any excuse for a bit of chocolate eh?!

With ds3 he was born at 7am and we were discharged at 2pm the following day; bloods were taken some time before discharge but can't remember when. It was probably all the chocolate I ate when pregnant. Starving hungry seemed like a good excuse to me