Part 6 | Lifestyle | Running with Child
Sept 6th 2022
I arrived home from work and Julie says she has to tell me something. She’s done a pregnancy test and she believes she’s expecting our first child. My first reaction is get off the couch and fist pump. I was jumping for joy. Personally we had mentally prepared ourselves for this to be a battle. Now that it wasn’t we were overjoyed. My second reaction is good lord I feel useless. My wife is doing the lifting I better go look up everything health science related to help her.
My wife had feared that she we might have difficulty conceiving. I had told people in the darkest days of the Pandemic that we were overdue for a streak. 2022 had it’s bumps but when I look back I can see the streak. The restrictions came off the weekend of my Stag party and the next weekend Julie had her Hen party with remarkably less worry. Next I got called off the ICT panel in the civil service. Julie was at number 2 on her panel. Within a week she was called off as well. Our Wedding in April was going to be no tame affair. We had spent a fair chunk of the pandemic engrossed in marriage Monday. We weren’t going to let any problem get us on our wedding day. We were going to overwhelm it. The night before we married we were relaxed. The following day we got to take it in. 5 months later Julie has told me we’re expecting our first child. I’d say that’s a streak.
Sept 11th | First Doctor’s Appointment
Naegele's Rule for those who don’t know is the standard way of calculating a due date for a preganancy. The formula takes the first day of the woman's Last Menstraul Period (LMP) adds a year, subtracts three months and adds seven days to that date thereby revealing the due. Wikipedia says
“This approximates to the average normal human pregnancy which lasts 40 weeks (280 days) from the LMP, or 38 weeks (266 days) from the date of fertilisation.”
Almost immediately I felt useless I was expecting that my knowledge of Physiology would start paying dividends and reassuring my wife but a quick review of Naegele’s Rule told me we’re still guessing about due dates. No confidence intervals established? Assumptions that every woman fits a 28 menstrual cycle? Lots assumptions off the average gestation length where was the median? The enormity of this lunacy was not lost on me. We were bringing a child into the world and we were starting with our best guess. How in the name of god are we still using a rule of thumb almost 200 years later. The fact that I’ve known a block layer who can do more accurate estimates of the cost of building on the back of his fag box after an Irish coffee nearly had me asking his opinion on the due date after that first Doctor’s appointment. I’m not having a go at the Doctor by the way she was excellent. The clinical best practice at her disposal that was disappointing.We’ve had centuries to review this scientifically and we still haven’t adopted some best practice. Add in that the thalidomide scandal in the 1950’s which basically skewed most of our scientific understanding relative to men and I left the Doctors office feeling worse than when I went in and I wasn’t the one pregnant staring down the barrel of uncertainty from the beginning of one of the toughest challenges life has to offer. I remember a college professor looking at me dumbfounded when I contended that we should revisit every single physiology experiment from the 20th century. I explained that monitoring was more comprehensive now and would become even more so and that it was easy to miss something when all you had was snapshots of data from your study. To be fair he accepted my point but I’m a bit worried that science overall is accepting that we have a bedrock of almost undisputed knowledge. I think a lot of knowledge on women is assumed because we checked the theory briefly in men. If I’m chatting to this professor again I might suggest we begun by studying women first.
Anyway to the real reason we’re here the physical activity guidelines
Physical Activity Guidelines During Pregnancy
Cardiovascular Exercise
Frequency : 3-5 days per week (not to exceed 5 days a week)
Intensity : Rate of perceived exertion 13 - 14 (somewhat Hard)
Time: 150 mins a week
Type: Examples Walking, Cycling, Swimming, Elliptical, Stair Climber, Rower, Aerobics Class
Strength Training
Frequency : 2 - 3 sessions per week (but not to exceed 5 sessions per week)
Intensity : light to moderate 60-80% of 10 Repetition Maximum. Sets 2-3 Repetitions 10-15 Rest between 60s after 28 weeks move to light resistance training
Exercises : 8 - 10
Type: Weight Machines, Thera Bands and Bodyweight exercises
No Supine exercises after Trimester 1 (12 week)
Daily Pelvic Floor or Kegel Exercises
Frequency : Daily
Intensity : 3 second holds 10 repetitions
Type: Pilates based
No Supine exercises after Trimester 1 (12 week)
( Mottolaet al., 2014 and Bush, 2018)
Conclusion
It is very tempting as a husband/partner to bro science this part of your life. This has potentially dangerous consequences for your partner and future child. I was a full time coach for 12 years and I have several certifications in advanced rehabilitation. I helped heart transplant patients carefully rehab themselves. I was right in there when the game was dangerous. I also spent years helping organise the care of pregnant women in Aqua Natal and Pregnancy Pilates but that was the height of my knowledge. Agata, Jacqui, Lisa, Roisin, Eileen and Jessica delivered the evidence based classes and guidance. My records showed that I helped one lady with supervised training whilst she was pregnant. I wasn’t the physical activity expert my wife needed so I did the next best thing I rang a few old friends and found the right experts in Dublin. I made the first appointment and after that Julie followed through with the exercise regime. The reality now is Julie more adept than me in this area of exercise science. My advice is encourage with the guidelines above but I wouldn’t as a partner be the coach. We’re out of our league here lads.
References
Mottola, Michelle., Muza, Stephen., Morey, Miriam 2014 Chapter 8 Exercise prescription for Healthy Populations with Special Considerations and Environmental Considerations. In:ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription 9th Edition pg 194-200.
Bush Jill A. 2018 Chapter 13 Female Specific Conditions: NSCA’s Essentials of Training Special Populations
Naegele's rule (2012). Naegele's rule Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson.Available at: https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Naegele%27s_rule [Accessed 10 January 2023].