Heavy cycling and trying to get pregnant

Good morning ladies. My husband and I are working on becoming parents. It looks like the next few days is the right time for conception. I have concerns about heavy cycling during this time or during the first days right after conception. Can I continue with my regular pedaling 25 – 50 miles per ride several of times a week considering that it is so hot in Phoenix? Did anyone of you learn that you got pregnant without slowing your exercise routine? Does this diminish my chances of getting pregnant? Maybe I am just worrying too much. :confused:

I am certainly no expert but have heard and read that you can typically continue whatever activity is normal for you. That said, I think I would discontinue any activity which would leave you very very tired, overheated and/or dehydrated and start taking a prenatal vitamin w/folic acid in it.

Now, hopefully all of the people who have some true knowledge will pipe in!

Tracy

hmmmmm don't know about the conception part.... but i know a lady who ran/jogged practically right up til she dropped the kid! on my fitness forums... a LOT of the women still do their workouts while pregnant!

heck.. they make maternity padded shorts! lol!

I bet if you were using cycling to _prevent_ pregnancy, it wouldn't work!!

Nanci

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Originally Posted by Nanci

I bet if you were using cycling to _prevent_ pregnancy, it wouldn't work!!

Nanci

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This sounds like an encouragement. I just have a few femaile friends who have serious problems getting pregnant. I guess I should not be thinking about it.

Good luck! Unless you're such an avid athlete that you've stopped menstruating, your cycling shouldn't affect your ability to get pregnant at all.

The advice against overheating, and taking a multivitamin with folic acid is good. Ideally, you take that vitamin with folic acid for 2 months prior, and for the first month of the pregnancy. It's been shown to reduce by 70% the incidence of open neural tube defect, a defect of the brain and spine that occur very early in pregnancy.

Have fun, both on the bike and off! :D L.

My personal experience has been that heavy exercise (incl. cycling) can contribute to anemia, which can delay ovulation. Before I was diagnosed and started supplementing with iron, heavy cycling would extend my normal 33 day period out to a 38-45 day long cycle. I'm trying very hard to not get pregnant, but lemme tell you having a period arrive 3-4 weeks late is very nerve-wracking! :eek:

So, as long as you're not anemic or nutrient deficient due to heavy exercise you're probably ok.

My son was conceived within 3 days of the end of a 9-day mountain bike tour. So, anecdotally, I would say that heavy riding does not effect fertility :rolleyes: .

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Originally Posted by Nanci

I bet if you were using cycling to _prevent_ pregnancy, it wouldn't work!!

Nanci

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HAHA rolling on the floor!

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Originally Posted by Dianyla

My personal experience has been that heavy exercise (incl. cycling) can contribute to anemia, which can delay ovulation. Before I was diagnosed and started supplementing with iron, heavy cycling would extend my normal 33 day period out to a 38-45 day long cycle. I'm trying very hard to not get pregnant, but lemme tell you having a period arrive 3-4 weeks late is very nerve-wracking! :eek:

So, as long as you're not anemic or nutrient deficient due to heavy exercise you're probably ok.

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I agree with this statement. Try and get a "Pregnancy" supplement. and dose yourself up on it. And get your iron checked by a doctor or go and donate some blood at the Red Cross and you'll get it done there for free!

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Originally Posted by Nanci
I bet if you were using cycling to _prevent_ pregnancy, it wouldn't work!!

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The only way I can think of cycling NOT getting you pregnant, is if you've done a massive ride on the wrong seat and your entire groin area is too damn sore to do anything. :D

Good luck Lenusik! We'd like to hear when you're buying a baby seat/trailer/ ride on to drag the little tyke around on too in about a years time. hehehe

Ingrid Christensen, the Norwegian distance runner, was puzzled one year when she finished in the middle of the field in the Norwegian national cross country championships that she usually won by a mile. Turned out she was 5 months pregnant and didn't even know it because she trained so hard she wasn't menstruating regularly. Anecdotal, of course, and in no way proof that your odds remain high even if you're training that hard. They're probably way lower if you're not menstruating, dehydrated, anemic, or generally exhausted. But they're not 0% even then. Oh, and the kid was perfectly healthy. But I'd say Lise prob'ly knows this stuff pretty well (aren't you a midwife, Lise?) and she says your chances shouldn't be affected if you're training somewhere under that ceasing-to-menstruate threshold. Good luck, and have fun!

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Originally Posted by Duck on Wheels

Ingrid Christensen, the Norwegian distance runner, was puzzled one year when she finished in the middle of the field in the Norwegian national cross country championships that she usually won by a mile. Turned out she was 5 months pregnant and didn't even know it because she trained so hard she wasn't menstruating regularly.

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Well! What was her first clue? Or, I guess, what was her SECOND clue?!

Yup, I am a midwife. I talk to a couple of women a year who thought "it" was something else--flu, whatever. Even the baby's movements and increasing belly size aren't always perceived as "pregnancy".

I am confused now, what's a midwife ?

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Originally Posted by FreshNewbie

I am confused now, what's a midwife ?

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are you serious? a midwife is what the obstetrician almost completely replaced in the early 1900's.
for thousands of years women have hired women to assist them during childbirth. In the USA at least you can get extensive training, as a nurse practitioner/midwife. Some midwives go house to house just like they used to 100 years ago, but due to extensive doctor lobbying way back when, in a lot of states it is illegal! There is an extensive network anyway in most states.
The other way to have a midwife is to follow all the rules, and i had the good fortune to deliver my second son in a midwife "hostel" which was a little clinic
with real beds and stuff, without any medication or anesthesia at all. Midwives do best with normal deliveries, ob/gyn's prefer the problems, because after all, that's what they were trained to do. Midwives are on your level; doctors tend to talk down to you... I could go on an on..

Thanks for clearing up, not married and have no kids, not for at least another couple of years.

Thanks for clearing up, not married and have no kids, not for at least another couple of years.

FN- my daughter was delivered by a midwife named Steve!! My entire prenatal care, midwife cost, hospital for two nights, -everything- was $800. (Back in the good old days!)

Nanci

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Originally Posted by Nanci

FN- my daughter was delivered by a midwife named Steve!! My entire prenatal care, midwife cost, hospital for two nights, -everything- was $800. (Back in the good old days!)

Nanci

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Nice! I am not sure if I will go this rout but now I am certainly considering it.
Thank you for great advice. I've been taking vitamins and fish oil for the last too months. I am not anemic a pretty strong, my cycle is regular. So, I am certainly hoping for good results.
Actually, i am planning my husband to pull the trailer. He would be the one doing the hard work after my "hard work" (pregnancy and delivery) is done. :)

mimitabby, great job explaining midwifery. Really nice. Wanna come live with me and go on my first dates and go to parties with me? Cuz I get a bit tired of telling the story over and over...:rolleyes: ...but I will keep telling it. It's important for women to know they have the option to see someone who truly is a specialist in normal pregnancy and birth. Our colleagues, the physicians, specialize in complications, disease, and surgery. We're a good team, when each does what they're best at.

www.midwife.org --the website for my professional organization.

I got interested in midwifery when I was getting my degree in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. I wrote my research paper for Medicine & Culture on the history of midwifery in the US. You won't be surprised to learn that it was more economics and competition for business that lead to OB docs taking over the majority of births. Birth was not profitable until anesthesia became popular (1930s), and birth became a medical/hospital event. Then midwives became "dangerous" all of a sudden. Interesting.

Should some pregnancies and births be attended by docs? Absolutely. Should 94% of the births in this country be attended by surgical specialists? Probably not. L.

First of all,
You've got a great adventure ahead of you and I wish you joy every moment of the whole process of considering, conceiving, birthing, caring and mothering.
While I don't think pregnancy is an illness or even a medical condition; I think the best thing is to listen to your body and your heart. If you really feel like biking (or whatever) go ahead. If you are only doing it out of habit or worse because you think if you don't use it you'll lose it... maybe think about what you might *really* like to do.
I think pregnancy is also a chance to do or try *different * things than usual and in that way it can be quite liberating. It is an opportunity to take stock. You can go over your whole life and change in the light of the pregnancy.

Women's bodies are so dynamic.....
better stop b4 the ink turns pink!

The midwife I hired for my pregnancy was great! Very intuitive and probed into personal issues with then-DP that went way beyond the mechanics of labor and birth, all stuff that needed to be dealt with.

Too bad she didn't get to attend the birth. After a really, really long labor at home, we decided to transport. We met up with a CNM at the hospital and tried some more. I wound up with a very medical birth, after all, but wouldn't even consider making an OB my first choice. Probably not even my second or third choice. Oooh, I've got my soapbox out, but I think I'll just not get up on it...

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Originally Posted by Lise

Well! What was her first clue? Or, I guess, what was her SECOND clue?!

Yup, I am a midwife. I talk to a couple of women a year who thought "it" was something else--flu, whatever. Even the baby's movements and increasing belly size aren't always perceived as "pregnancy".

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I've lost count. Third clue maybe? Fourth? Fifth? (no periods, slow pace, weight gain, back pain, tender breasts ...) I think her sports doc suggested taking a test, but I don't really remember. This was years ago, decades.

BTW, regarding the midwife/nurse title thread ... In Norway all hospital birth clinics are staffed with midwives. Doctors come through on rounds or when a midwife calls them, but they are secondary. Most birthing women deal pretty much only with the midwives. All municipalities are also required to have a midwife service for prenatal care, and some also have private midwife practitioners who offer home birthing. In the Netherlands, midwife-attended home births are standard, unless the midwife triages you to a hospital. And our few male midwives have chosen to keep the title as it is, because of the established honor of it.

Also in Norway, the majority of doctors graduating from med schools is now women, although the majority in the profession as a whole is still men, who are also the "seniority", logically. But the public image lags behind. I'm not a medical anything, just a humble sociologist who studies how they work, but when I'm doing field work in a health setting EVERYBODY -- including doctors, nurses, patients, administrators, etc. of both genders -- asks if I'm a nurse. The answer is no, I'm a doctor -- of sociology. ;)

Do all of us TE women think we're beyond all this cultural baggage? Or are we part and parcel of the cultures around us? Try taking an online test of your prejudices. There are tests on racial prejudice (whom do you associate more with weapons, "black" faces or "white" faces?), sexual orientation prejudice (do you associate positive terms more easily with hetero images than with homo images?), and gender prejudice (do you associate men more than women with science terms?). Results can surprise you as your body responses may not correspond to what you intellectually believe. I forget the URL, but I'll look it up and edit it in here later.

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Originally Posted by Duck on Wheels

Do all of us TE women think we're beyond all this cultural baggage? Or are we part and parcel of the cultures around us? Try taking an online test of your prejudices. There are tests on racial prejudice (whom do you associate more with weapons, "black" faces or "white" faces?), sexual orientation prejudice (do you associate positive terms more easily with hetero images than with homo images?), and gender prejudice (do you associate men more than women with science terms?). Results can surprise you as your body responses may not correspond to what you intellectually believe. I forget the URL, but I'll look it up and edit it in here later.

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I think that this is a very interesting topic but may cause a lot of "trouble" on this board. If you wish start another thread. I would be interested to jump in.

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Originally Posted by Duck on Wheels

BTW, regarding the midwife/nurse title thread ... In Norway all hospital birth clinics are staffed with midwives. Doctors come through on rounds or when a midwife calls them, but they are secondary. Most birthing women deal pretty much only with the midwives. All municipalities are also required to have a midwife service for prenatal care, and some also have private midwife practitioners who offer home birthing. In the Netherlands, midwife-attended home births are standard, unless the midwife triages you to a hospital. And our few male midwives have chosen to keep the title as it is, because of the established honor of it.

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Many European countries function this way. It's certainly a more prudent use of health care dollars. My favorite word for midwife is the French, sagefemme, or wise woman! I learned it when I was in France visiting my cousin, struggling to converse with a train conductor in a mix of Spanish, English, and my very limited French. I said I was a "partera", an "obstetrice", and he said, "Ahhh! Vous et une sage-femme!" I loved that. "Ah, oui!", I replied, sagely. :D