Exercising during pregnancy can be a difficult task. Many factors need to be taken into account including your fitness levels before pregnancy and the type of exercise you are doing.
High impact exercise or lifting heavy weights can be risky especially once in the second trimester and there are specific positions that need to be avoided.
Taking all of this into account plus the fact that pregnancies do differ in each individual it is important to consult your doctor or obstetrician before commencing any exercise program whilst pregnant.
Once given the ok to exercise it is important to choose something that you feel comfortable and safe doing. For many women Clinical Pilates is a great option. Some benefits of prenatal and antenatal Clinical Pilates include:
- Safer than many exercise alternatives
- Supervised sessions with specialist physiotherapists as your instructors
- Improves your core strength, posture and pelvic floor strength
- Helps prevent and manage incontinence during and after pregnancy
- Maintain your strength and fitness
- Help manage and prevent back, neck and joint pain
- Improve posture, flexibility and balance
- Helps prepare the body for labour
- Easier labour
- Aids in a quicker recovery post labour and improved body shape
- Sociable – a great way to meet like-minded people
As research has progressed more and more health professionals are recommending Clinical Pilates before, during and after pregnancy to help with issues faced by pregnant women during and after pregnancy. These issues can be related to lower back pain, pelvic pain and incontinence to name a few.
During pregnancy ligaments become more elastic due to the release of the hormone relaxin and as a result once well supported joints such as the spine and pelvis can become painful. This is because the ligaments are no longer supporting the joint as tightly as they were before and the added weight of the baby can cause the joints to move differently and cause irritation in surrounding areas.
At Health Point Physiotherapy we run a range of Clinical Pilates classes including pre and post natal Pilates. All sessions are run by physiotherapists and are claimable on private health insurance. We use Real Time Ultrasound to assess the strength of your core and pelvic floor muscles (that way you can see on the screen how your core muscles work) and always start with a thorough full body assessment. Your Clinical Pilates program is then prepared based on the assessment outcomes. We also offer a wide range of physiotherapy services to help tackle that pregnancy pain and offer discounts for individuals who attend both Pilates and physiotherapy with us.
If you have any questions why not pop into the clinic, send us an email or call us up to find out more.