The expanding fitness options for pregnant women
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For more women, working out while pregnant now just feels like working out. Fitness for them no longer means quiet breathwork while sitting on a medicine ball.
Plenty of pregnant women want to keep up their weightlifting, running, dance, boxing and Pilates routines through all three trimesters. Absent complications, doctors say, they should. Even with a doctor’s approval, stigmas persist.
Many women feel more comfortable working out at home instead of in public. New online platforms encourage fitness during and after pregnancy, while educating moms about how to prevent or heal postpartum conditions. For decades, doctors mostly told pregnant women to take it easy, says Margie Davenport, an exercise physiologist and professor at the University of Alberta.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists first published fitness guidelines for expectant mothers in 1985—and it has since increased its recommended amount and intensity of exercise. The latest ACOG guidelines, published in 2020, recommend 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise a day, five days a week, barring risk factors like hypertension or preeclampsia. These guidelines match those recommended to all healthy adults.
Vigorous exercise, like running and HIIT workouts, is also generally safe through the third trimester, especially for women who were doing it before pregnancy, according to research co-authored by Davenport published in 2023. “It’s about continuing and maintaining activity levels when the woman can and wants to," Davenport says. After Megan Roup launched her online fitness program for pregnant mothers—which she recorded while expecting her first baby in 2021—one recurring piece of feedback surprised her:
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