“Women who are pregnant should be under the care of a health care provider who can monitor the progress of the pregnancy. Women who are pregnant can consult their health care provider about whether or how to adjust their physical activity during pregnancy and after the baby is born.”
That said, here are the general guidelines:
“Women should do at least 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Aerobic activity should be spread throughout the week.”
If you have not been physically active prior to pregnancy:
It’s not too late to start! (Exception: your physican has told you there is a medical reason you should avoid activity)
You can “begin light- to moderate-intensity aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activity.” Don’t do too much too fast. “Increase the amount of physical activity gradually over time.”
If you have been “habitually” physically active prior to pregnancy
You can continue at that level during pregnancy and postpartum. You “generally do not need to drastically reduce [your] activity levels” as long as you “remain healthy” and “discuss whether and how to adjust activity levels” with your health care provider.
This includes “light-to-moderate intensity aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activity” as well as “vigorous-intensity aerobic activity” or “a lot of aerobic or muscle-strengthening physical activity.”
Activities to avoid:
- Activities that involve lying on your back (after the first trimester, because “this position can restrict blood flow to uterus and fetus.”)
- Contact or collision sports
- Activities with a high risk of falling or abdominal trauma
How to decide what is moderate or vigorous during pregnancy:
“Perceived exertion is often a better indicator of intensity than heart rate” or evaluating based on an external standard such as how many METS an activity is, or focusing on how fast you are doing a mile, etc.
Perceived exertion is a subjective sense of how hard an activity is. There are three methods that are often used to decide how great your level of exertion is:
- The talk vs. sing test: Moderate activities are ones you can do while carrying on a conversation; however, you wouldn’t be able to sing. Vigorous activities allow you to talk only in short phrases.
- Or you can use a mental scale of 1-10 where 1 is sitting and 10 is the greatest possible effort. Moderate activities would be at a 5 – 6. Vigorous activities are 7-8.
- Many gyms have charts with Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scales and descriptors or you can find them online . The numbers indicating “moderate” activity tend to be slightly different (4-5) than the ones in the guidelines. You can discuss the different methods of Perceived Exertion with your health care provider to choose what is right for you. Sample RPE chart
You can read the full guidelines for pregnant women yourself at 2018 Guidelines for Physical Activity p. 80
<link>Applying the I-SSEE method to set yourself on the path to optimal exercise during your pregnancy and postpartum period
