Pregnancy and riding

[ploopypleepy]

Hi everyone, just looking for a bit of advice. Ive just found out I'm pregnant and will need to carry on riding (small jumps, bit of dressage, the usual) until im about 15 weeks. Does anyone have any advice or experience with this? Did you ride whilst pregnant ?

Congrats! Yes it's pretty common to keep riding until later stages of pregnancy and although obviously you have to be mindful that riding is a dangerous sport and comes with increased risk of broken limbs etc and a small but real chance of serious injury you have to take into account, I don't think there's any evidence of increased risk of miscarriage or problems with the baby - in the first trimester the growing fetus is very small and well protected deep inside you so even if you do fall (which obviously is to be avoided!) your body will absorb the blow and they are unlikely to be hurt. The jockey Lizzie Kelly took an absolute pearler of a fall at the 2nd last at Cheltenham probably going 25-30mph when she was early pregnant and baby was absolutely fine and I think is a healthy toddler now!

I rode (on my own, very quiet and reliable) horses until it got physically uncomfortable to do so and had no problems as have others on my yard, TBH doing yard work was much worse with the tiredness/sicky-ness of early pregnancy than riding, although I was conscious of doing my (internal) risk assessment and lunging before or instead of riding on a day where they were fresh or whatever, but I would have done that anyway and indeed still do... is it absolutely essential you jump for instance, not saying small jumps are going to harm you or your baby at all but on a day like today where the wind's howling around and everyone is a bit on edge I would personally think it's better to have the option to just leave it until another time rather than being rigid about cracking on regardless. I also think it's important to keep in mind everyone and indeed every pregnancy is different, some people struggle much more than others or just suddenly totally lose the desire to ride at all, and so I'd start to think about a back-up plan now if you did need or want to stop riding a bit earlier...

Thank you for replying. It's great to hear that you also carried on riding and I'm not doing something stupid. I think it's also a really good way to keep your fitness and strength up too for the birth.

Your totally right about seeing how I feel, and I guess I can take it day by day. I have the use of a large indoor school which I can use on those bad weather days which will make things easier. Just praying I don't fall off, even dismounting makes me worry about jolting the baby but like you said they are very well protected!

I’m currently pregnant and managed to get to 20 weeks before I decided to stop. I was getting far to uncomfortable in the saddle. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I did stop jumping and any fast work and just hacked . I ride and work with fit competition horses .