No pregnant pause

[snopes]

The conventional wisdom has for years been that during pregnancy, vigorous exercise is a no-no. Yet a growing body of evidence suggests that a regular exercise regimen — even a robust one — can lead to short- and long-term health gains. So let the taboo go.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/...gnant_pau.html

Originally Posted by Shadow

I didn't even know pregnant women exercised at all anymore since a lot of them treat their 'delicate condition' like it's a handicap or a reason to be lazy slobs (hence the 'stork parking').

I can only assume for your sake this was tongue-in-cheek?

[Aud 1]

Some pregnant women get sciatic pain which does make walking painful. Don't scoff at stork parking.

When I used to swim at the Y there was a pregnant lady who could hardly walk but could swim beautifully. Just sayin'

[wanderwoman]

I feel really well informed now, since what the OP calls "conventional wisdom" was not supported by anything I read or any medical person I talked to during pregnancy. And that was 25 years ago. I was specifically told by my doctor that any exercise regimen that was followed before pregnancy could be followed during pregnancy with some allowances made for balance problems later in pregnancy.

The bad news is that I exercised all through both of my pregnancies and still ended up with extra weight that was difficult to lose after each of them. But then I've battled my weight all my life.

There are circumstances that can affect the ability to continue with a workout. The second time I was pregnant I had an IUD in place so I had to give up swimming, which was my daily workout at the time. I had to switch to other activities, which threw me off a bit.

[FrogFeathers]

Originally Posted by Aud 1

Some pregnant women get sciatic pain which does make walking painful. Don't scoff at stork parking.

My third pregnancy was like that- I could barely walk at all. And they didn't have stork parking back then.

My youngest will be 14 next month, the middle is 15 1/2 and the oldest is almost 18. They were telling me back then that exercise was good- just to pay attention to my body. I didn't exercise much with the first (after being on bed-rest briefly) and I did with the second. Of course, with the sciatic pain with #3, I didn't do much either.

I'm a bit shocked because my medical care came from Army doctors/hospitals. And they're usually horribly behind-the-times for medical advice. This time, they were years ahead of the article.

[wanderwoman]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I didn't even know pregnant women exercised at all anymore since a lot of them treat their 'delicate condition' like it's a handicap or a reason to be lazy slobs (hence the 'stork parking').

If you really resent it so much, I say park in those spaces. Do you really think they'll arrest you for it? What would they do, ask you to pee on a stick?

[Lady Neeva]

When my mom was pregnant with me, her doctor pretty much took the stance that she should do whatever she felt comfortable doing.

Course, I decided to cook for an extra month, almost causing Mom to miss an endurance ride that she'd really been looking forward to. She'd even paid the entry fee thing, figuring I'd be out and all before then heh.

Apparently the vets at all the vet check stops nearly had heart failure when they saw a nearly 10 months pregnant lady come in lol -- apparently she spent most of the day listening to "Don't even think about it, I don't DO human babies!" and "Does your doctor know you're here?" lol.

Her doctor, when asked, basically said if she felt comfortable doing it then by all means... and who knows, maybe it will shake the baby loose. It didn't, I stayed in for another two weeks lol.

[PallasAthena]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I didn't even know pregnant women exercised at all anymore since a lot of them treat their 'delicate condition' like it's a handicap or a reason to be lazy slobs (hence the 'stork parking').

I would love to have a few more of those parking spaces around right now. I am suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum with my pregnancy. When things were really bad, the only time I could go out, it was go get meds, and then only just barely. I'm not talking about nice meds either. I am on a constant subcutaneous drip of Zofran. That's what they give chemo patients. Yeah. I am on cancer medicine to keep me alive just from being pregnany. I am also taking a variety of other medicines to keep the vomiting under control. My husband calls it my Hyperemesis cocktail, and I am a slave to it. I have to take them at just the right times or bad things happen. Sometimes the medicines react in unpleasant ways, like the time the reglan made me suicidal. That was a fun trip to the ER. I believe I even posted about that here.

I went through a period of being so malnourished that I could barely stand, let alone walk around. I looked like a heroin addict, I was so thin and sick. My hair was falling out in handfulls and I was honestly afraid I was going to start growing lanugo like some anorexics do. On bad days, just the pressure change from an opening or closing door was enough to send me into bouts of uncontrollable vomiting. I have vomited food and water until there was nothing left. Then I vomited bile. When I ran out of bile, I vomited blood. I spent 3 days in the hospital getting rehydrated after they tinkered with my meds (due to the reglan side effects). It took 2 days for the my urine to be free of keytones. I am NOT the only pregnant woman suffering from this. There are plenty of us.

Additionally, hyperemesis is not the only thing that makes it hard for pregnant women to get around. There are a whole slew of reasons I and other pregnant women appreciate places with expectant mother parking. Sciatica, swollen joints, difficulty moving around in general, and extreme fatigue are a few.

Pregnancy can be harder than you even know, and for some women it certainly is a delicate condition. For me, when things were bad, it was almost like I was handicapped. Heck, I am still on disability leave trying to recover from this.

I hope the next pregnant woman you call a lazy slob smacks you with her purse. I'll just have to settle with this.

[Trixie Tang]

PallasAthena- I was on Zofran during my last pregnancy, and it did not work for me. My doctor told me that a few people simply don't respond to it. This pregnancy I'm on Phenergan, and although it helps some, it takes about 40 minutes to kick in. At least I get pills now. A few weeks ago I needed suppositories of... something... can't remember what... because I couldn't keep down water. Few people understand that pregnancy can be a horrible experience for some, and many of us don't get to stop the "morning sickness" at the second trimester. I don't think my nausea is as bad as yours, but I understand.

About the exercise- I always thought pregnant women should exercise, and that the delicacy of pregnancy was an idea long gone. Oh, how wrong I was. It may be a regional thing, though. We were renovating our house the end of my last pregnancy and had to stay at my in-laws. It was, without a doubt, the darkest and most unpleasant month of my life. My husband and I slept in an upstairs bedroom, and my mother in law continuously nagged me about climbing stairs. "You shouldn't be doing that. You should just sleep down here. Here, let me get you a chair. You shouldn't be standing so much." A few months later she mentioned, "You know, I was watching a program on television, and they said exercise is good for a pregnant woman! Did you know that?"

I related this to my grandmother who laughed and said, "Of course you should exercise. Labor is very rigorous. How else can you have the stamina for it?" She said as a young woman, she was made to walk and do squats while pregnant. Her mother claimed that not exercising would cause you to buckle under your own weight toward the end. Silly, no?0

[Esprise Me]

Count me in among the peanuts who never heard of this "conventional wisdom." My mom certainly didn't give up her vigorous exercise routine of running, swimming, and step classes in the eighties when she was pregnant with me. She gained only the recommended minimum amount of weight. There's a picture of her at eight months pregnant, wearing a swimsuit, shot from the back; she looks almost exactly the same as she did pre-pregnancy. (The next photo in the album is of her from the side, and there you see the enormous belly!) I've also had several bosses who got knocked up, and continued working (on their feet for 10 hours at a stretch--restaurant management is not a desk job!) until a few days before their due date. None of their kids came out mushy or disfigured.

[Troberg]

Well, this ought to put an end to the discussion earlier about a law in some state that didn't allow potentially pregnant women to wrestle (and, if memory serves me right, it was worded in such a way that the definition more or less included all women). If not, I guess LuFisto will have to fight another legal battle for women in wrestling.

[Kallah]

I am suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum with my pregnancy.

As you have so kindly pointed out and linked for everyone, you are suffering a rare and very painful malady along with the much more common pregnancy. In most places, including the state of Texas (warning: that’s a .PDF) you would more than qualify for a temporary disability placard for the vehicles you drive or are driven around in. Your case is covered under law in most places, but it is far from the average pregnancy.

Personally I think they should take down the storks and add signs with a giant red exclamation point labeled “Spot for People Having A Terrible Day.” Everyone, including expectant mothers, could use it if need be.

[STF]

The stork parking doesn't bother me at all. My wife has used it once since she is now 37 weeks along. Walking long ways and being on her feet are hard on her. I don't have any issue not being able to park there when I'm by myself. Extra walking is good for me.

[PallasAthena]

Originally Posted by Kallah

As you have so kindly pointed out and linked for everyone, you are suffering a rare and very painful malady along with the much more common pregnancy. In most places, including the state of Texas (warning: that’s a .PDF) you would more than qualify for a temporary disability placard for the vehicles you drive or are driven around in. Your case is covered under law in most places, but it is far from the average pregnancy.

Personally I think they should take down the storks and add signs with a giant red exclamation point labeled “Spot for People Having A Terrible Day.” Everyone, including expectant mothers, could use it if need be.

Ah, you see, my point was to use myself as an example of one of the many reasons a pregnant woman would be grateful for those stork parking places. Just because my personal experience is more extreme than most doesn't mean the other reasons I mentioned

There are a whole slew of reasons I and other pregnant women appreciate places with expectant mother parking. Sciatica, swollen joints, difficulty moving around in general, and extreme fatigue are a few.

aren't valid also. Shadow's assertion that pregnant women use their pregnancy as an excuse to be lazy slobs was extremely offensive. Right now, I wish I could exercise. I went from training for a 1/2 marathon to not being able to walk to the sink to get water to take my medicine.

[Lady Neeva]

My father's take on the situation was that it was about time they started adding those. He didn't even mind that it ended up re-arranging the handicap parking so some of it was one row further away (basically they split the four rows of handicap in half, moved half of them one row over and put in a row of stork parking) at his preferred grocery store.

This is the same man who saw his wife on an endurance ride when she was 10 months pregnant, so it's not like he didn't know that pregnant women weren't the delicate flowers some people thought they should be... he just thought they should be spoiled. Seeing as they were having babies and everything... sort of a reward of sorts lol.

Then again, it was a fight getting the man to USE the handicap parking in the first place... he always claimed there were people that needed it more. He was only missing both legs, he still had a perfectly good adult daughter to push lol.

[wanderwoman]

Originally Posted by PallasAthena

Ah, you see, my point was to use myself as an example of one of the many reasons a pregnant woman would be grateful for those stork parking places. Just because my personal experience is more extreme than most doesn't mean the other reasons I mentioned

aren't valid also. Shadow's assertion that pregnant women use their pregnancy as an excuse to be lazy slobs was extremely offensive. Right now, I wish I could exercise. I went from training for a 1/2 marathon to not being able to walk to the sink to get water to take my medicine.

{{{PallasAthena}}}. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time.

I was shocked at the vehemence in Shadow's post as well. I have heard minor complaints about the special parking places from time to time, but never with that kind of nastiness attached.

Those of us who have been pregnant remember well that last month in which we dealt with swollen ankles, balance problems, and the need to get to the bathroom as quickly as possible upon arriving anywhere. In addition, where I live it can be a challenge to walk across an icy parking lot without falling during the winter months.

I don't think pregnant woman are fragile or delicate, but I see no problem with being considerate of the challenges of their condition, just as I would for anyone with any kind of temporary condition that presents physical limitations.

[geminilee]

I like the fact that they have stork parking now. I have even seen a few stores that have "family parking" for people with strollers or small children. They are great. Pregnant women, or families with a lot of small children in tow, have a lot of difficulties that your average healthy person does not have, so they should get some concessions made for them. For most people, those few extra feet do not amount to much, but if you are trying to balance, or to wrangle a herd of kids, those few feet do make a big difference.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

One of the stores I take my father too has what we fondly refer to as "old geezer" parking. We use it, of course, since he's 79 and has balance problems some days.

Seaboe

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I didn't even know pregnant women exercised at all anymore since a lot of them treat their 'delicate condition' like it's a handicap or a reason to be lazy slobs (hence the 'stork parking').

If you're not a lazy slob yourself, the special parking for pregnant women shouldn't inconvenience you, so why do you care?

The fact that a pregnant woman parks in the Stork Parking proves nothing about her overall exercise level. For all you know she just swam 50 laps, but wants to park close to the store because her feet hurt.

[bobs]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I didn't even know pregnant women exercised at all anymore since a lot of them treat their 'delicate condition' like it's a handicap or a reason to be lazy slobs (hence the 'stork parking').

lazy slob? Hardly! When pregnant with baby number three I still had to take the older two to school, I was walking over 4 miles a day on the school run alone, right up to 40 weeks pregnant. Add to that normal housework, shopping etc etc.

When carrying baby number four I suffered from Symphasis Pubis Dysfunction. I could barely walk to the end of the garden. For months I was practically housebound. Even wlking up/down stairs was agony.

And I didn't even have it severely. Pregnancy is not an illness but it CAN be disabling.