Exercise vs Tiredness in Pregnancy

[SimoMa]

Dear Mums,

I'm currently 30 weeks pregnant with my first baby.

My pregnancy started being really exhausting since the beginning of my second trimester at the point of barely being able to go out for a short walk.

My Midwife is trying to encourage me to take at least a 30 minutes walk each day but I cannot physically manage and I'm very concerned about my lack of exercise and sedentary lifestyle of the past months.

Any tired Mums out there going through the same? Do you manage to include exercise in your daily routine?

Thank you!

[Mcra]

I'm 31 weeks and I've been struggling with exercise for the past few weeks. I get breathless very quickly. I still manage to do things just gently, so I'm walking quite slowly. My heart rate goes up, so I think it counts. I also do gentle pregnancy yoga and that feels great. A bit of cleaning around the house feels like exercise at the moment too. Every little bit helps.

I'd suggest baby steps. If 30 minutes in one go is too much, maybe try 10 at the time? And I highly recommend yoga, there are some short videos on YouTube specifically for the third trimester. And if it's too much, you can always pause or skip things.

Good luck!

[Levse]

Hi there! I can definitely recommend swimming pool - have had painful joints from my 2nd trimester, and now in my third and get really tired walking around, but in the pool none of it applies, so I've been going at least twice a week, found it really enjoyable.

[Elle_hope]

Have you had your iron levels checked? I was the same and feeling so unfit and awful and turned out to be really low iron. Feeling much better but took baby steps. 10 min walk here and there. Don’t beat yourself up, pregnancy is really hard!! X x x

[SWBK]

I am currently 30wks and I have just been told I have low iron levels which is making my tiredness much worse. I didn’t exercise much first trimester, felt way to sick, but did gentle jogs and daily walks in my second. Jogging is too much now so I swim twice a week which helps loads. I agree, even walking upstairs gets me out of breath but even though I don’t feel like exercising at the time I always feel so much better and less tired the day after exercise so am trying hard to do something every day. I’m working on my iron levels so hopefully things will improve and I will be more motivated to exercise!! My biggest motivator to keep moving is exercise while pregnant has been shown to help with labour. As this is my first that’s a big incentive 🤣