Swimming when Pregnant

The general all round health benefits of swimming are well known. As well as being an all round, good for you exercise if you are pregnant swimming is one form of exercise and one that can be done throughout your pregancy.  Generally swimming will burn calories, make you feel less fatigued, help you sleep better and cope better with pregnancy's physical and emotional challenges.  Swimming has many physical and psychologial benefits.

Swimming uses both the large muscle groups (arms and legs) and provides good cardiovascular (heart and lungs) benefits. Aerobic excercise helps to increase the body's ability to use oxygen, which is important for both you and your baby.  Swimming improves circulation, increases muscle tone, strength and builds endurance.  Swimming can help to aleviate joint stiffness, high blood pressure and general discomfort associated with pregnancy.  As a non-weight bearing exercise swimming gives the sensation of weightlessness in the water... this is despite the extra pounds added by pregnancy.  The relatively weightless environment helps prevent injury as the water supports your body, joints and ligaments as you excercise, preventing injury and stopping you from getting too hot!

If you swam before pregnancy then you should be able to continue without too much modification.  According to Dr Gordon 'there is no evidence that active swimming women have more frequent miscarriages, babies with birth defects or that swimming is a cause of premature labour, low birth weight babies or problem with labour.'  However he does advise that 'the only preclusions to swimming are women with a history of three or more miscarriages, ruptured membranes, early labour, weak cervix, twins or multiple pregnancies or heart or lung disease.'  If you did not swim or do much excercise before pregnancy then check with your doctor or midwife first.  You should still be able to swim but make sure that you start slowly, stretch well during your warm up and cool down and not over exert yourself. 

The best stroke to swim during pregnancy is breast stroke.  Breast stroke involves no rotation of the torso (as front crawl does) and requries less exertion.  Pregnancy forces the spine and shoulders to round forward and the pelvis to tilt out of alignment, breaststroke gently strengthens the muscles and counteracts that tendency.  Breaststroke also counteracts the increased strain in the back due to the belly weight of pregnancy, it lengthens the chest muscles and shortens the back muscles.  Backstoke is another good stroke, becasue the water reduces the gravitational effects on your body you can lie on your back without risking impared blood flow such exercises can cause on dry land. 

It is important, as when doing any form of physical activity, to always remember drink enough water, particularly in hot weather.

This article is based upon guidance from the UK Amateur Swimming Association Guidance and can be found on www.britishswimming.org