I thought I'd posted this yesterday but I don't see it. My apologies if it did end up floating around here somewhere.
Hi. :) I'm new here although I've been popping in and out for a couple of months to read various discussions. I am a 28 year-old female who has been swimming competitively for most of her life. I'm doing low-mileage masters now to complement my running and lifting activities and quite enjoy it.
Last week my husband and I found out that we are expecting our first child. Now that it's sunk in, I realize that my routines will have to change a bit. I think my swim practices should be easy to modify. However, I had just signed up for a local summer competition league when we found out. There are six SCY meets total with short events (longest being IM & 100 fr), and the first is this Thursday.
Based on reading I've done online and a call to my health insurance Nurse Help line, it appears that I probably should not do dive starts from the deck even as early as I am now at 5 weeks. Has anyone else heard of this or heard differently? I'm going to call my ob/gyn doctor tomorrow to verify but there really seems to be a limited understanding in the medical community of competitive swimming.
I'm especially curious about this because we're trying to keep the pregnancy a secret for a couple of months to make sure it sticks and avoid news spreading too soon to my company. In-water starts will certainly raise eyebrows so I might need to pull out of the competition league and just stick with practices if I can't dive.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!
First of all congratulations!!
Secondly, Carrie has some good advice. Every person will have different experiences during their pregnancy and different advice from their medical professional as well. For me, my son was my 4th pregnancy (lost 2 to miscarriage and 1 to ectopic). I continued to swim (train) through all 4 but my doctor wouldn't let me race once we found out about #4. We were overly cautious with the last one. But... I was actually at LCM Nationals having morning sickness which is what tipped me off that I was pregnant. After the positive test and meeting with the doctor, though, no more races and I had to slow down in practice. No getting my heart rate over 130, I believe. With the prior 3, I continued to train hard although that had nothing to do with losing them. Good luck and enjoy the next few months!
First of all congratulations!!
Secondly, Carrie has some good advice. Every person will have different experiences during their pregnancy and different advice from their medical professional as well. For me, my son was my 4th pregnancy (lost 2 to miscarriage and 1 to ectopic). I continued to swim (train) through all 4 but my doctor wouldn't let me race once we found out about #4. We were overly cautious with the last one. But... I was actually at LCM Nationals having morning sickness which is what tipped me off that I was pregnant. After the positive test and meeting with the doctor, though, no more races and I had to slow down in practice. No getting my heart rate over 130, I believe. With the prior 3, I continued to train hard although that had nothing to do with losing them. Good luck and enjoy the next few months!
