Meets & Pregnancy?

Hi swimhappy! First, congratulations on your pregnancy!!! Second, you will find many people on the forums who have competed while pregnant, including several who have dove in from the blocks. You will also find several who stopped diving when they found they were pregnant. Unfortunately, there is very little honest-to-god researched medical information available on swimming competition while pregnant. If you ask doctors if you can swim, they typically say, "Sure! Swimming's great!" because they have no idea how hard you may push yourself in the pool. In the end, the decision of how hard to train and whether or not to go off the blocks will come down to what you're comfortable with (assuming, of course, that you are having a healthy pregnancy with no complications). For what it's worth, I didn't swim when pregnant with my first child at age 30 because I hadn't swam in about a year and figured it wasn't a good time to get back into it. Child #2 came along at age 33, about 3 months sooner than planned (like the pregnancy started 3 months sooner than planned) and I had already signed up for scy nationals, made hotel and flight reservations, etc etc. Since I had been training consistently prior to getting pregnant, I kept on training. First trimester, I competed in meets at 6, 9, and 11 weeks. I dove in from the blocks for all my races. My meet at 6 weeks was great - best ever non-tapered 100 free. My 9 and 11 week meets, I was SO nauseous. Wow, was I sick. The meet at 11 weeks was nationals, and that was the last time I dove. I'd gained about 10 lbs and was quite bloated, but there was no pooch yet so I figured the baby was still safely tucked behind stomach muscle. The last meet I did was at 36 1/2 weeks. I swam a 50 free from a push, executed a successful flipturn, and went pretty slow. But it was fun. :) I don't think you'll have any problem training while pregnant, just follow the old rule of "listen to your body". Also, make sure you don't overheat (keep your core temp down) and skip the hypoxic stuff.

I wrote a whole blog on this called Karen's Pregnant Blog. I think it was moved over to the blogs section but I never checked. Congratulations, so exciting :bliss: I dove until about 6 months I think. All of my children were big, so I just did things until I couldn't physically do them anymore. I know I did flipturns (badly!) until about 8 months. In fact, the day after I couldn't do flipturns anymore, with number 3, I ended up in the hospital and had him early. My body knew it was time! That's the best advice: really listen to your body, and if you're not sure what it's telling you, err on the side of caution. Best of luck to you, and if you're so inclined, write a blog.

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!

Congratulations... My wife played competitive volleyball most of the way through her pregnancy with our first child. I suspect you'll be fine.

Karens post reminded me, if you get morning sickness (I had it for 7 months!) try open turns. Flip turns bothered me but I could handle open turns. They helped a lot.

I have seen one or two pregnant woman compete at Masters Meet and started from the pool. Actually, one college swim coach's wife actually did a triathlon probably 5 weeks pregnant or so and actually beat her husband in the triathlon. Compete if you want but start from the pool and probably do open turns. There was one woman at my practice that actually did butterfly a week or two before she gave birth. She said that this stroke didn't hurt as much as the others.

Firstly - congratulations! I really don't have a lot more advice to give, but I swam LCM 100, 200 fly and 200, 800 free at 6 weeks pregnant - starting from a dive and doing flip turns (on the free). The hard push-offs from the turns did hurt down in my stomach, because all those muscles get stretched so much early on, and I almost pulled out of the 800 as I was starting to feel really tired. At the time only my coach knew and I was there sharing a room with and competing against my sister, so the pressure was on to feel normal! Anyway that was the one and only competition I swam pregnant, but kept up the training throughout both of mine. As has been said - listen to your body. Swimming will feel a lot harder particularly at the start as that's when the baby takes so much out of you, but once you get to 7 or 8 months, you'll really look forward to that "weightless" time in the water. I carried on flip turning until I physically couldn't turn the huge belly over. Fly I managed until about 6 months as I by then didn't have the strength to drag my whale-like self up and clear of the water to breathe. One thing to watch though is that your joints soften up, so be careful not to overstretch particularly back & shoulders.

Thanks for all of your responses. I feel better about this having heard from people who know the sport and have been in this situation themselves or witnessed it firsthand. I mentioned I'd spoken to a Help Line nurse yesterday who said she didn't think it was a good idea. Today I called my ob/gyn's office and the nurse there didn't seem one bit concerned about racing or diving at all, even past the first trimester. That's a pretty broad spectrum of medical advice in addition to all of the varying info I've been reading. My husband leaves the final decision up to me but he thinks we shouldn't risk it since there's a little bit of miscarriage history in my family (my sister miscarried in the first trimester of her first pregnancy last year but her second pregnancy was a success). I'm torn - I think it's probably fine this early but I don't see a need to push it just for a bunch of local meets. Starting in the water would raise a lot of eyebrows at the meets and get people asking before we're ready to tell so I think I'm going to ask for a refund on the competition league, explain things to my coach, and just do my normal practices instead. Thanks again for the congrats. We are thrilled. :)

Starting in the water would raise a lot of eyebrows at the meets and get people asking before we're ready to tell Just say that you're worried about the impact from diving on your shoulders... you don't have to mention that it's the baby's shoulders that you're worried about. I've seen plenty of people start from the side, and it never once occurred to me to wonder if they were pregnant.

Happy, where are you in VA?