Should You Squat During Pregnancy?

Should You Squat During Pregnancy?

Group of pregnant women during fitness class

Have you been told by your doctor or any other professional that you should avoid squats during pregnancy?

 

Squats are one of the essential exercises to do during pregnancy there are so many benefits from doing this functional type of exercise.

 

 

 

5 Benefits of Squatting

 

Doing squats while pregnant

 

1.  Increase Pelvic floor muscle strength
How often you do Squats (with good technique) will help prepare the pelvic floor muscles for birth. This exercise will help strengthen your pelvic floor muscle much better than a kegel exercise!

 

2.  Prevent Back & Pelvic Pain
Strengthening your glute muscles, that’s your butt, helps to decrease lower back and pelvic pain. Strong Gluteus Maximus muscles helps to stabilize your pelvis by supporting your sacroiliac joint. This prevents pain which is often caused by ligaments loosening due to pregnancy hormones relaxin and progesterone.

 

3. Prepare for labour
Squats can help you specifically prepare for labour and birth. The exercise mirrors positions you can hold to help you cope with contractions in early and late labour, helping baby to descend deeper down into the pelvis.

 

4. Stronger Birth Positions
Strengthening leg muscles during pregnancy by performing a variety of squats gives you more endurance in your birthing positions, ones that will allow gravity to assist making the pelvic opening wider which gives baby a bit more room to push through!

 

5. A great looking butt!

Squats will keep your rear in shape during pregnancy and then post so you don’t have to worry about what you look like from behind!

 

 

 

When Should You Not Squat?

 

Pregnant woman doing physical exercies with instructor

 

There are times though when squats are not beneficial and you should avoid:

 

1. When baby is not in an optimal position after 30 weeks

Squats help descend a baby deeper down into the pelvis. If a baby’s bottom is presenting first when a baby is in a breech position you don’t want to be pushing a bottom further down. Turn your baby into the optimal position first and then you can start squatting again.

 

2. Pain

If there is any pain when you perform a squat then you may need to have your technique assessed to correct your form or you can choose from different variations to reduce any discomfort.

 

3. Medical reason

There are some scenarios when you don’t want to induce early labour, a couple of examples might be Vasa Previa and multiple pregnancies under 35 weeks that have had their labour stopped with drugs.

 

 

 

Should you try and squat 300 times a day at the gym?

 

Pregnant female athlete doing goblet squats

 

Definitely not, it’s ok setting yourself a 100 squat challenges three times a week but don’t do 300 squats a day, every day at the gym, you would fatigue your muscles and reduce any benefit and improvement. Why is this? Muscles need rest in order to recover and adapt, with any daily challenge it does not allow for ANY recovery time.

 

 

 

Will birth be faster?

 

Pregnant woman in delivery room with CTG monitoring

 

One of the many benefits for mums who exercise during pregnancy is that they can reduce their labour time by approx 90 mins. Add this reduction to a better suited labour position that you can actively hold and yes you are definitely going to give birth faster!

 

Squats are one of the most beneficial exercises for you to do during pregnancy, so don’t believe the naysayers you may come across suggesting that women shouldn’t squat. You can squat from week 5 to 40+ weeks.

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