Pūtahi Hauora
Defence Health HubPre & Post-Natal Training
Supporting safe and effective training during pregnancy and after delivery.
NZDF Guide to Exercise, Fitness and Physical Training during and after pregnancy
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Exercise guide during and after pregnancyExercise guide during and after pregnancy
Exercise during pregnancy webinar
Watch MAJ Raylene Grant's informative overview of exercise and physical training during and after pregnancy.
0:10
hey everybody and welcome it's great to have you here today to talk about exercise and pregnancy my name is Major
0:17
Raylene Grant i've been working with a team over the last six months to produce
0:22
a guide which really gives a a really nice clear guide in the journey
0:29
as our pregnant wahine navigate their way through pregnancy and
0:36
managing work and the pressures and many of us have joined the military because we really like that
0:43
hands-on aspect and physical type of work and then when we become
0:49
hapu our bodies change and our ability to do different things change so we've put together this guide to make it
0:56
really clear um you know the the types of things that are recommended and not recommended and the sorts of support
1:03
that are in and around you i'll go through the guide and yeah let me know if you've got any questions
1:09
along the way
1:18
um the guide starts off just with a couple of four words so the first one is from the commander of the joint support
1:23
group who manages all of defence health and my immediate manager who's the
1:29
who manages all the garrison support of health and i think the main points there is
1:36
that there is a lot of support around us in that with our medical offices our doctors
1:41
with our physical training instructors with our physiotherapists who are all working together to help you through
1:46
this journey there's in
1:52
when we start sending out this document you can just press on um you know the
1:57
bits that interest you and it does look like there's quite a lot there but because it's broken down into separate trimesters and into a pregnancy and then
2:05
the postnatal part separately hopefully that's not too overwhelming
2:12
in terms of the introduction for the majority of women and for the majority of pregnancies staying fit and active
2:19
and healthy throughout our pregnancies is going to be really good in preparing the bodies for childbirth reducing
2:25
injury maintaining a healthy body weight getting those feel good hormones and if
2:31
we have any of our pregnant wahine online which we probably do many of you might be thinking oh man like exercising
2:38
is the last thing i feel like doing at the moment and through our pregnancies we're going to be tired angry sad fatigued and
2:46
everything in between and it's really a matter of balancing you know those times where we are feeling good and do have a
2:51
little bit of extra energy to get out and do regular exercise because it is so
2:56
important it reduces the pre and postnatal depression enables a faster recovery
3:03
after the birth and all the benefits of exercise actually extend to the fetus as well
3:09
which is awesome initially when i um started this
3:16
when i was going to um do this presentation i was like oh well i'll skip over all the you know appointments
3:21
and scans and bits and pieces and sometimes during pregnancy you just feel like that initial part of pregnancy is a blur
3:29
of appointments and scans and everything in between but i think it's important that we do go through this and
3:35
how it's relevant to new zealand defence force so when we find out that we are hapu or think that
3:41
we may be habu the first thing that we do is obviously go and catch up with one of the medical officers who will confirm
3:47
our pregnancy and talk to us about our role and as we talked about before being in the
3:53
military we've probably joined up because we love that hands-on aspect of it and there may be aspects of our role
3:59
that we can no longer do so it's going to be a matter of talking you know with the medical officer working with our
4:05
manager and commander and working with our health and safety advisor so that we've we're kept safe in the
4:11
workplace and we are no longer i guess you know because it's not about us
4:18
anymore you know it's about the life growing inside us and i know that there's a real want to be you know part
4:24
of the team and you know one of the guys and but i think that it's really important to acknowledge that you know
4:31
there we are going through special changes and so to really you know these recommendations from the
4:37
medical offices is going to be really important to make sure that you're kept safe and baby kept
4:43
safe we obviously choose our lead maternity carer pretty early on in the piece and
4:49
they're going to manage us right throughout our pregnancy and will tell us to continue exercise if there's no
4:55
complications in the pregnancies and we'll talk a little bit more about if there are complications the different
5:01
types of exercises that we can do and the mo is able to refer us off to
5:07
different special exercise classes if we you know do come under that umbrella of
5:13
having complications in our pregnancy which you know which does happen to a certain percentage
5:19
of our pregnancies in terms of our maori and pacific lead
5:26
maternity carers and we can elect to choose these online as we choose our uh
5:32
individual lead maternity carer and some of the aspects of uh for example um
5:38
maori birthing previously you know squatting and holding on to posts during uh the birthing process was
5:46
really important so potentially your exercise plan you know this may be important to you so as you work through
5:52
your different exercise program if this is important for you to do a specific
5:58
type of birthing bring this up with your physiotherapist exercise rehabilitation instructor or
6:04
whoever you're working closely with to create your exercise program informing your manager can often feel
6:11
like quite a daunting task especially if you know you've had previous miscarriages and find this a difficult
6:18
conversation to have but as soon as you're really uncomfortable to do this this needs to happen
6:25
to make sure that yourself and your baby are kept safe so that they are able to alter the duties in and around you
6:33
so that you're working in a safe way to keep yourself um well and still involved in work
6:41
but in a way that's not going to compromise yourself or your pregnancy unless you elect to do so you're not
6:46
required to attend formal pt unit sports field exercises shift work drill or parades which you
6:52
probably know but there are some people that you know want to keep doing this and so it's just
6:58
a matter of you're making it really clear with the you know with your manager and with the mo whether this is
7:05
going to be safe for you to do so within the new zealand defence force the
7:12
mo is able to refer you for a pelvic health physiotherapist review and
7:18
this is really important to do often we do it around the 20-week mark the pelvic health physiotherapist we'll talk to you
7:25
about specific exercises that are important to do for example our pelvic
7:30
floor and core are going to be really important the pelvic health physiotherapists are
7:36
the only people that are actually able to give us feedback whether we're doing these exercises
7:42
right and with your consent they will do an internal examination to make sure that there is correct activation of the
7:50
pelvic floor muscles the pelvic floor muscles which we talked about in a couple of pages away
7:55
are really important because there's a lot more weight put on these muscles uh
8:01
during pregnancy as we carry that additional weight and then these muscles are going to be really key for
8:07
the um birthing process when we push the baby out so the stronger and more
8:12
functional these muscles are during during our pregnancy the more likely we're going to be able to bounce
8:19
back quickly after and not have some of the complications that can come following pregnancies such as urinary
8:25
incontinence or painful sex and all the things that are
8:31
really important in our normal functioning lives after you have been cleared to continue
8:39
exercising book an appointment with either the physiotherapist or the your
8:44
local uh exercise rehabilitation instructor and some people have said well like you
8:49
know who do i book an appointment with with physiotherapists they are obviously
8:55
movement specialists who if you have if you know if you have any injuries or any
9:00
specific sort of medical stuff they're going to be really good at that for our exercise rehabilitation
9:07
instructors they've done special coursing in pre and postnatal training and have a really
9:13
good understanding of specific exercises to do and to not do
9:18
during exercise and you can catch up with both of these people as well and as we talked about during pregnancy it
9:24
sometimes feels like a bit of a blur of appointments and scans but it is important that you've got all of the
9:31
support around you and getting all the information that you need specifically around exercising and keeping healthy
9:37
and well so in this booklet it's got a couple of links there for booking them with the
9:42
physio or if you don't know who your rehabilitation instructor is in your camp there's an email there to touch
9:48
base and find out more so getting into the specific
9:55
points about exercising during pregnancy the pregnancy program is designed to
10:01
maintain good pelvic health and good health correction core health to prepare your
10:06
body for birth and recovery if you've been for example a runner before pregnancy
10:14
you can keep doing that but it's just a matter of changing the intensity and duration
10:20
during this during pregnancy it's not about whether can i it's more about
10:25
should i and during this period it's not about trying to get our personal best and sometimes it feels like it's a
10:32
little bit of a competition to do so like oh i could still do that during my pregnancy and that's really great if
10:38
some people are talking like that but really keep going back to that tagline um
10:43
can i you know versus should i and i really cringe when i look back on some of the
10:50
things that i was doing in my pregnancy and but i think the fact that we now
10:55
have you know really clear recommendations of what we should be doing and shouldn't be doing and as i say it doesn't mean that you have to um
11:03
you know only do these exercises if you are lifting a lot of weights beforehand you can still lift weights but it's just
11:09
a matter of reducing that intensity and reducing the you know the sort of weight that you're throwing around
11:18
the recommended type of exercises that we should be doing is moderate intensity exercise including
11:25
aerobic activity walking swimming water aerobic cycling low impact aerobics for
11:31
30 minutes for most days of the week you might want to jump into pregnancy
11:36
exercise classes such as pilates pregnancy yoga yoga hydrotherapy aqua
11:42
jogging but we can also do a lot of strength stuff as well which is going to be
11:47
really important particularly around preparing the body for childbirth so light to moderate resistance training
11:53
using bands or weights and if you're used to doing weights keep doing them but just decrease the load
11:59
the amount the range of movement as your pregnancy progresses and if you've already engaged in
12:04
vigorous activity or are highly active and if you feel well enough you can
12:10
continue to do this but just really stay closely monitored with the with your lead maternity carer and
12:16
continue to ask yourself you know can i versus should i
12:21
the type of things that are not recommended are activities where
12:28
such as rugby where there's collision where there could be um you know after that three month
12:34
period and the baby has moved up out of the pelvis we want to avoid any
12:39
type of activities type of pt sports you know where there could be a collision the fast change of direction
12:46
stuff so when we're going through pregnancy as you're aware our um the relaxin
12:54
and hormones change to make our body more flexible more subtle to prepare the
13:01
body for childbirth so if we're doing those quick direction quick change of direction type
13:06
activities there's an increased chance that we may become injured because our joints are more
13:13
lacks and flexible it's not recommended that you conduct heavy weight training so the you know
13:20
one repetition maximum you know particularly where the breath changes and you know there's a really
13:26
bearing down on the pelvic floor uh endurance exercise so we talked
13:32
before about you know if you're an endurance runner call you can continue
13:38
to run but it's recommended that you don't run for over 60
13:44
minutes because of the increase of our body temperature
13:50
and our fetus our baby its temperature is two degrees higher than ours anyway and so we just want to
13:57
be really aware to not increase our temperature too much because it's going
14:02
to increase you know the baby's two degrees more than ours which moves us into the next one
14:09
activities that cause a rapid or prolonged increase in heart rate for over 60 minutes are not recommended the
14:15
heart is already working twice as hard as normal so our hearts during pregnancy
14:20
work as hard as what the cyclists do and the tour de france in terms of how much blood we're pumping
14:26
around the body and activities that cause our heart to work at really high intensities are
14:34
not recommended for long periods of time exercising in high
14:40
temperatures or high humidity similarly is going to increase our temperatures too much and the babies
14:47
for some people who really have um
14:54
a lot of joint laxity through the relaxin um it may be painful for them to do
15:00
squats and lunges and any exercise that place pressure on the low back and groin
15:07
so for example if in your exercise program you know there is squats
15:12
you just want to take it to a point that's comfortable for you and not go into a deep squat or not go into a wide squat and
15:19
you know because there's so much changes to the hormones in and around the body
15:24
exercises where you lie flat on your back after 20 weeks are not recommended so anything where you're doing core
15:31
stuff just pop you know a bolster or a pillow or do it in a sitting position after that 20 week period and that's
15:38
related to the uh compromise of the the blood vessels in the back so we want to make sure
15:44
obviously that baby's getting lots of blood to the area exercise that cause coning or doming of
15:51
your abdominal muscles so if you're doing a sit up for example and the
15:56
abdominal is coming into a coning shape it means that we're putting too much pressure in on the on the core
16:07
um so those abdominal exercises will go through you know the type of core
16:12
exercises that will be suitable for doing during pregnancy
16:18
um if you get any of these symptoms stop exercising so if you develop shortness of breath
16:23
in term i mean when we're exercising obviously we want to increase
16:29
the you know increase our
16:35
breathlessness but you know we still need to get air in and should still be able to talk so if you get to a point
16:41
where you're unable to breathe that's you we need to stop immediately and um
16:46
call the dhc or head on down chest pain deep calf swelling any vaginal bleeding cramps or pain
16:55
uh contractions any leaking of amnionic fluid and have sharp intense pain in the
17:00
pelvic region you need to stop exercising immediately and touch base with the defense health
17:07
center or your lead maternity carer and then if you're feeling um unusual
17:14
sort of muscle pressure feeling dizzy faint develop a headache and you know just touch base with your lead maternity
17:21
carer immediately for our warm up and cool down
17:29
during a pregnancy our blood volume doubles and our heart will work twice as hard as what it normally does
17:35
and therefore our warm up should just be a real gradual increase of this heart
17:40
rate so it could be going for a light jog or it could be jumping on the bike or the cross trainer
17:47
cooldowns same again should be gradual and really concentrate on bringing that
17:53
heart rate back down to its base rate and just a really light cardio activity of your choice
18:01
stretching exercises are important as part of this cool down but we just want
18:06
to take it to a point of discomfort in those vigorous end range stretches and not recommended during pregnancy because
18:14
as we talked about the relaxin you know our joints and muscles are already a lot more flexible and subtle
18:20
than what they usually are so we just want to take the stretches to a point of discomfort and
18:28
not vigorous ones the talk test during exercise so we want
18:33
to when we're exercising we still want to be able to have a conversation it should be a little bit hard but we
18:40
shouldn't be gasping for breath you should be doing enough to make you breathe deeply but shouldn't have to
18:46
gasp for breath if you can say a whole sentence before having to take a breath your activity is
18:53
about right let's talk about
18:59
the anatomy of a couple of really important uh parts of the body during pregnancy so the pelvic floor
19:07
are a strong group of muscles which attach from the front of your pelvis to the back of the tailbone
19:12
they are a very important group of muscles as they are the base of our abdomen and the
19:17
floor of our core and if we can really make sure that these muscles are strong and functional
19:24
during our pregnancy then it's going to make it a lot easier for childbirth and we are going to be
19:33
able to bounce back a lot easier after having baby and avoid
19:39
complications that come with pelvic floor dysfunction our deep core and stabilizing muscles
19:46
are really important to keep strong and functional during pregnancy uh
19:52
this will help us maintain a good posture as our center of gravity changes
19:57
keep the muscles strong as they stretch to accommodate the growing baby support our spine and pelvic joints to
20:04
prevent low back pain pelvic pain or groin pain and work with the uterus to help to push
20:11
the baby out and therefore core muscle strengthening and pelvic floor strengthening really
20:18
make up a key part of our pregnancy exercise program
20:25
we'll talk a little bit about the first trimester and
20:30
the changes that occurring in that first trimester so often in our first
20:35
trimester you know we are completely naked we might be unwell and feeling pretty
20:43
crook and if possible you know we still want to stay active in this if we can and
20:49
just exercising in those days where we're feeling well enough to do so
20:54
our energy levels may be low and morning sickness may occur so
21:00
we just want to do what we can so even if it's just a short walk around the block that's still going to be really beneficial for ourselves and baby
21:07
joints and ligaments become hyper flexible during pregnancy and we just need to assure ensure we're not over
21:13
stretching the joints and ligaments during this time the hormone relaxin stays in the body
21:19
for three months following birth and for three months following breastfeeding and so it's important to
21:26
gradually return to training following birth and breastfeeding for anyone that
21:31
has a miscarriage over this time it's often you know we'll want to
21:37
i guess sort of avoid the grief and get straight back into training as soon as we can but
21:42
a point here is you know there's still going to be the high levels of relaxing in the body and a lot of people do
21:47
experience injury during this time and so if they're you know if you
21:54
do have a miscarriage during this time don't rush back to exercise because there you know the body is going to take
22:00
a while to come back to normal and this is the same with termination also
22:07
hydration it's really important that we stay really well hydrated during that first trimester and throughout pregnancy
22:14
so take a water bottle along to your workout and drink throughout our workout
22:19
and we want to make sure that we're drinking at least eight to twelve glasses a day and the body needs so much
22:25
more water during pregnancy because it's creating more blood more amniotic fluid and you know doing
22:32
um amniotic fluid producing extra blood volume and carrying the nutrients to to
22:37
flush out any wastes and toxins so it's really important that we keep up a really high hydration during pregnancy
22:45
so exercise during the first trimester generally we can keep doing what we were
22:52
doing but we need to decrease the intensity try to keep the heart rate below 120
22:59
beats per minute and manage the temperature and ensure you're not overheating
23:04
and making sure that we add pelvic floor and deep core exercises into our routines
23:12
we've got a bit of a checklist there which is a lot of appointments and scans and just making
23:17
sure that we're touching base with the right people
23:23
pelvic floor strengthening exercises how do we do these you've probably heard of kegel exercises and on this page it just
23:30
talks about how we do these kegel exercises and the easiest way to start doing it is lying on our backs we talked
23:37
about we don't want to lie on our backs after the first 20 weeks but before then
23:43
that's fine we want to start lying on our back
23:50
just because this is the easiest way to get them working as we exhale we want to
23:58
lift and contract the pelvic floor muscles and cues that might help you do this
24:05
to visualize a marble at the opening of your vagina
24:10
and visualize it sucking it up into the vagina for some people the cues
24:16
such as you know suck up a tampon or hold in a fat
24:22
or stop yourself peeing you know grip on a straw and you know suck up the smoothie
24:28
so there's different cues that may work for you but we want to maintain this maximal effort for
24:35
10 seconds ideally or up to 10 seconds if we're still you know working up to it to it and we don't have that endurance
24:42
quite yet we then want to fully relax and repeat this for
24:49
10 times so we're working on the endurance aspect because these are how these muscles work however we also want
24:56
to work the fast twitch aspect of the pelvic floor and how we do this is we do
25:03
ten quick flicks so we do the you know the suck up and the pull of the
25:10
pelvic floor muscles but really quickly for 10 seconds
25:15
for our deep core muscle strengthening similarly the easiest way to get into
25:20
these is lying on our backs we want to put our hands on our hip bones and just come in
25:25
one centimeter if we do a small cough we will feel these muscles contracting
25:31
underneath our our fingers to get the deep core muscles working
25:38
and similarly on our exhale breath we just want to draw in slightly at the abdomen at the
25:45
underlying we want to hold for 10 seconds keep breathing throughout and complete five to ten rep repetitions of
25:53
this and this is our real sort of entry level stuff to make sure that these muscles
25:59
are working and activating and the more that we progress through our pregnancy and
26:06
working these muscles they're going to get stronger and we're going to be able to
26:11
get them contracting and you know sitting and standing and as we're doing our exercises which is what we want to
26:16
progress to in
26:21
in each of the trimesters we have included in this booklet uh
26:28
the pelvic floor and deep core muscles there's a youtube link
26:34
that you can click onto to watch our model do these different exercises
26:42
which may help also there's also a strengthening component
26:48
and we're not by any matter of means saying that you know you need to do this
26:54
exercise program as we talked about whatever you have been doing prior to becoming pregnant you can keep doing
27:00
that but just changing up the intensity and how much weight you're
27:06
lifting and the duration and so we've put this these exercise components in here if
27:13
you're like oh far out like i really don't know where to start so there's a push and a pull and a squat and a lift
27:19
and we just want to do these with a weight that you're comfortable doing
27:25
and as i say you know you don't have to do this program but it's a safe
27:31
type of exercise that you can do during pregnancy if you're starting exercising just make
27:37
sure that you go down and catch up with your exercise rehabilitation instructor and they'll make sure that you're doing
27:42
all the exercises right as you go on similarly there's a link there that
27:48
um will take you through to a video of um mary alice going through this
27:55
exercise program and a bit of core stuff at the end there
28:02
nice and moving into our second trimester during our second trimester
28:09
the baby's getting a little bit bigger hopefully we've got some of our energy back and hopefully some of that morning
28:15
sickness will have passed so we can start getting into our training a little bit more um the breast tenderness may have
28:22
subsided but you know the breasts are still growing and probably starting to feel
28:28
heavy as the milk ducts develop
28:33
stretching and thinning of the abdominal muscles during pregnancy is normal
28:40
and will go back to normal after we have baby
28:45
however exercise during this trimester should not put additional pressure on
28:50
those abdominal muscles and core muscles so exercises that work the rectus
28:55
abdominis that muscle at the front of our core the superficial ones
29:01
such as sit ups bicycles leg throws are not recommended during this time because the
29:09
abdominal muscles are already under quite a lot of pressure as they thin and
29:15
separate for accommodating the growing baby repair and recovery from diastasis recti
29:22
which is the normal sort of thinning and separating of the rectus abdominy usually takes between 6 and 24 months to
29:29
come right following birth following birth the
29:34
lead maternity carer and your pelvic health physiotherapist and the you know eri will be able to
29:42
advise you you know whether they're whether you you know do have diastasis recti
29:47
and specific exercises such as the deep core muscles and the pelvic floor muscles are going to be
29:54
really key for helping this return back to normal
30:00
maternity support belts can be really helpful for people that are experiencing
30:05
pelvic pain and joint pain i understand that you can you know touch
30:10
base with your defense health center or ap and physio to order these belts if this is important to you
30:17
however you might just want to grab one online or at one of the stores so smiley
30:22
bouts or some roll abouts are common in new zealand and they're made of like that thick wetsuit type material and
30:29
often people who are pregnant um you know find these really really comforting
30:34
to just support the low back and pelvis a lot better
30:40
let's talk about our bladder and what is normal so a healthy bladder doesn't leak
30:47
it tells you when it's full and gives you time to get to the toilet it can hold between 460 ml of urine and
30:55
empties you know once every two to three hours you may wake up
31:01
in the night you know particularly in that first trimester and third trimester when there's a lot more pressure on the
31:07
bladder and a normal bladder completely empties each time
31:12
an unhealthy bladder leaks urine when coughing sneezing
31:17
lifting jumping skipping and running and if you are experiencing any of this
31:24
during your pregnancy touch base with your pelvic health physiotherapist
31:29
following referral from the medical officer to make sure that the
31:35
pelvic floor are working well uh other signs that you need you know
31:40
that that the pelvic floor isn't working as well as it needs to be is if you have a sudden urge to pee
31:46
if you need to go to the toilet more than every two hours um you know if there's a heaviness in
31:53
your underpants if it can't hold enough urine you know less than 300
31:59
millimeters you have to get up more than twice per night um it does not feel comfortable after
32:05
you've been to the toilet and passed urine and the urge is so strong that you can't get to the toilet in time so this
32:11
is not normal and you just make sure that you get the scene to a lot of people particularly in our military just
32:18
like oh well you know it's you know everybody you know like i've talked to other ladies and this is normal for them to like pee when they're
32:25
you know doing a skipping rope and just because it's common it doesn't mean that it's normal
32:31
and we don't want to have long-term problems problems from our pregnancy you know we
32:36
want to bounce back and be fit and deployable so make sure you get this sort of stuff sorted out rather than just putting it
32:42
off for um you know i'll be fine
32:48
exercise during the second trimester your bump will be growing and things like running or high impact activities
32:54
will start to feel uncomfortable so try swapping them out for a low impact activities such as walking or
33:00
swimming and group training classes are fun um but make sure that you let your
33:06
instructor know that you are pregnant and they'll just be able to keep an eye on you and give you progressions and regressions of
33:12
exercises when required exercising lying flat on your back is not recommended after the 20 weeks so up
33:19
to do exercises in a sitting or inclined position
33:25
here is some exercises for the second trimester pelvic floor and
33:31
core so in this trimester we're doing the pelvic floor
33:36
and core in our four point kneeling position and this is still a nice easy position to get the pelvic floor and
33:43
core muscles working in terms of our strength training program it's the same
33:50
exercises as before but they've just been regressed so instead of doing
33:56
a press up on our knees on the floor we're doing an incline press up against a bench press in this activity and the
34:04
in the second trimester um our model here is using dumbbells so
34:09
i mean you can continue to use barbells if you want to and we've just regressed
34:16
the the amount of weight and the um yeah the weight and intensity of
34:21
these exercises so exactly the same exercises as the first trimester strength stuff
34:28
but we're not going quite as deep and we're not lifting quite as much
34:35
we've added in a pregnancy stretching pregnancy stretching program into the
34:41
second trimester as well and the first one
34:46
you know just sitting down and coming and really connecting with the breath is going to be important and really seeing
34:52
if we can start to teach the body to breathe wide so there's going to be not
34:57
so much room for our lungs sitting here so if we can really teach and initiate that wide
35:03
breathing that's going to be good for when the baby starts to get bigger and pushing on all our lungs and
35:10
organs as we move into our third trimester baby
35:18
is rapidly putting on weight which make which may make you feel heavy tired sore
35:24
and achy you might feel discomfort in your pelvis hips back as the ligaments loosen to
35:29
prepare for labor so during this as we talked about we
35:35
you know are probably going to be feeling tired and sore so we want to
35:41
change our exercises so we're still doing it but the intensity is going to be light
35:46
potentially things like swimming and aqua jogging is going to feel a lot better for us in
35:52
this trimester because it's going to take that weight off the feet knees tummy
36:00
it's normal to gain a 20 weight gain during pregnancy and i
36:05
think that often you know when we get pregnant we'll think that we'll have the baby and then you know put on our size 8
36:13
jeans and walk out of the hospital and i think it's important that you know we do take a long-term approach to our
36:20
bodies and that we've gone through a pretty amazing transformation and created life
36:26
and out to the back of it you know have probably come out with stretch marks and
36:32
ziggy bits that we didn't used to have and really take that long-term approach and don't put pressure on yourself to
36:39
you know squeeze into those jeans and walk out of the hospital because it's going to take a long time for your body
36:45
to get back to normal for me about two years and you know for some
36:51
people longer than this so i think just really taking that long-term approach to
36:56
you know the changes that your body goes through and how long it's going to take
37:01
to get back to normal the you know talking to fitness trainers that work in this
37:06
industry you know one of their comments were you know working with
37:12
postpartum females excuse me if they
37:17
from from their sort of experiences if ladies have had you know babies less than sort of two
37:25
years apart then the body doesn't really go back to that initial sort of state and so
37:32
generally with babies sort of three years apart that you know the body can go back to that
37:38
you know full strength full fitness and so i guess the point that i wanted to make there is that we just really
37:44
need to take a really long term approach of what our bodies will look like as we've
37:50
put on the extra weight to grow a baby uh the baby will add pressure onto your
37:56
organs which may lead you to feel breathless have heartburn and go to the toilet
38:03
often and continue exercising as long as you feel well enough to do so and continue those
38:10
continual checks with your lead maternity carer up to 45
38:16
of our ladies you know do experience back and pelvic pain the maternity belts
38:22
might help uh you know staying nice and strong through the the core might help
38:28
and you know catching up with a physiotherapist is going to be beneficial as well other things that we can do is reduce
38:35
the distance and speed of our walks avoid uneven terrain reduce stride
38:41
length avoid activities where you cross your legs um getting in and out of the car
38:48
you know just imagine like there's a zipper up the thighs and keeping the legs together as we pivot out of the
38:54
car so it doesn't bring on that groin and pelvic pain similarly if we're getting up out of bed in the morning
39:01
zip put that zipper you know right up the thighs and keeping the legs together avoiding activities where we stand on
39:08
one leg and sitting down for dressing and putting on shoes so it doesn't put you know so much weight and this won't
39:14
be relevant to everyone but you know there's some people in the end of that third trimester where everything is just
39:21
sore and hurting and achy so we just want to really make sure that we're not putting additional pressure by standing
39:27
on one leg by crossing the midline that sort of stuff
39:33
pelvic floor injury and dysfunction is common in pregnancy and postpartum woman
39:40
and up to 80 of women will leak when they are pregnant and over 30 percent
39:46
will continue to leak after childbirth although this is common it is not normal
39:53
so if this is happening it's not normal and make sure that you are touching base with your pelvic
39:59
health physiotherapist to you know really get this sorted
40:05
exercise in the third trimester swimming is going to be um
40:12
really nice for us and you can continue exercising unless you know your maternity carer has advised against it
40:19
so low pay low impact activities such as strength training walking and swimming is going to be good during this time
40:33
when we move into our third trimester for our core and pelvic floor we can
40:38
either do this in sitting or in side lying and it's the same exercises just the positional change
40:45
similarly our strength training is the same exercises but the weight might be lighter and for our press up we've gone
40:54
from an incline press up to a wall press up
41:00
we want to continue our stretches during the third trimester also
41:07
hey and that concludes the main points for our pregnancy and exercise presentation uh
41:14
congratulations to all of you out there who are currently hapu or may have
41:20
partners who are happy the key points is if you know you were
41:25
already training you can keep doing that training but continue to ask yourself um you know just because i can do it you
41:31
know doesn't mean that i should do it and you know growing a life inside us is a pretty exceptional
41:40
um thing to do and so we want to make sure that we're looking after ourselves and baby
41:45
as we go as we progress through our pregnancy we can keep doing the same exercises but we're just changing the
41:51
duration changing the intensity and working within what our body can do wishing you all the best for your
41:58
journey and thank you very much for your time today thanks
42:04
thanks so much roland and we've just got a question as well from one of the attendees um if you don't mind
42:12
so they've said is there any appetite in engaging with the lmcs so they are able
42:17
to work for defence i attach to our medical facilities for our defence personnel sometimes wanting
42:24
that separation um from defence in this case
42:29
nice that's a really good question which i'm going to write down because i think that's an amazing idea
42:36
and as we you know look to have our multi-disciplinary teams all located in
42:42
that same position you know in that same location man how cool would that be and i'm going to write that down thank
42:48
you good
42:56
question perfect right well i think we'll um oh no we've got another question coming sorry
43:04
um somebody's just asking as well if there would be any way to access the powerpoint after the webinar as well
43:12
yeah of course so um maybe i'll send it to you laura i've um
43:18
posted it up on our facebook page which is called nzdf
43:24
um force health physical performance so you can get it off the
43:30
um facebook page there this is the this will be released within the next
43:36
couple of weeks so it's just sitting with dpa at the moment we've just got a few more changes to make and then the
43:42
booklets will be printed and they'll be at the defense health centers and it'll be up on the health website
43:50
and yeah hopefully the nzdf social media will be able to post it as well so and
43:55
answer your question yes absolutely this is not the final product but it's um you know the content won't
44:00
change it'll just be a couple of things that need to be updated so if i send that through to you
44:07
laura and the people that want it um can touch base with you will that work
44:13
yes that's perfect um i can i'll pop our integrated wellness email address in the
44:19
chat um as well and so if yeah anyone wishes to yeah get a copy of your slides
44:25
um they can contact us that way as well great perfect all right well thank you so much
44:32
for your time um and yeah for i think there'll be a lot of people out there that will get a lot of use out of
44:38
this and um be able to get some yeah real um valuable guidance from this so no thank you so much and yeah i think
44:45
we'll we'll wrap up there awesome thanks laura thanks for having me.
hey everybody and welcome it's great to have you here today to talk about exercise and pregnancy my name is Major
0:17
Raylene Grant i've been working with a team over the last six months to produce
0:22
a guide which really gives a a really nice clear guide in the journey
0:29
as our pregnant wahine navigate their way through pregnancy and
0:36
managing work and the pressures and many of us have joined the military because we really like that
0:43
hands-on aspect and physical type of work and then when we become
0:49
hapu our bodies change and our ability to do different things change so we've put together this guide to make it
0:56
really clear um you know the the types of things that are recommended and not recommended and the sorts of support
1:03
that are in and around you i'll go through the guide and yeah let me know if you've got any questions
1:09
along the way
1:18
um the guide starts off just with a couple of four words so the first one is from the commander of the joint support
1:23
group who manages all of defence health and my immediate manager who's the
1:29
who manages all the garrison support of health and i think the main points there is
1:36
that there is a lot of support around us in that with our medical offices our doctors
1:41
with our physical training instructors with our physiotherapists who are all working together to help you through
1:46
this journey there's in
1:52
when we start sending out this document you can just press on um you know the
1:57
bits that interest you and it does look like there's quite a lot there but because it's broken down into separate trimesters and into a pregnancy and then
2:05
the postnatal part separately hopefully that's not too overwhelming
2:12
in terms of the introduction for the majority of women and for the majority of pregnancies staying fit and active
2:19
and healthy throughout our pregnancies is going to be really good in preparing the bodies for childbirth reducing
2:25
injury maintaining a healthy body weight getting those feel good hormones and if
2:31
we have any of our pregnant wahine online which we probably do many of you might be thinking oh man like exercising
2:38
is the last thing i feel like doing at the moment and through our pregnancies we're going to be tired angry sad fatigued and
2:46
everything in between and it's really a matter of balancing you know those times where we are feeling good and do have a
2:51
little bit of extra energy to get out and do regular exercise because it is so
2:56
important it reduces the pre and postnatal depression enables a faster recovery
3:03
after the birth and all the benefits of exercise actually extend to the fetus as well
3:09
which is awesome initially when i um started this
3:16
when i was going to um do this presentation i was like oh well i'll skip over all the you know appointments
3:21
and scans and bits and pieces and sometimes during pregnancy you just feel like that initial part of pregnancy is a blur
3:29
of appointments and scans and everything in between but i think it's important that we do go through this and
3:35
how it's relevant to new zealand defence force so when we find out that we are hapu or think that
3:41
we may be habu the first thing that we do is obviously go and catch up with one of the medical officers who will confirm
3:47
our pregnancy and talk to us about our role and as we talked about before being in the
3:53
military we've probably joined up because we love that hands-on aspect of it and there may be aspects of our role
3:59
that we can no longer do so it's going to be a matter of talking you know with the medical officer working with our
4:05
manager and commander and working with our health and safety advisor so that we've we're kept safe in the
4:11
workplace and we are no longer i guess you know because it's not about us
4:18
anymore you know it's about the life growing inside us and i know that there's a real want to be you know part
4:24
of the team and you know one of the guys and but i think that it's really important to acknowledge that you know
4:31
there we are going through special changes and so to really you know these recommendations from the
4:37
medical offices is going to be really important to make sure that you're kept safe and baby kept
4:43
safe we obviously choose our lead maternity carer pretty early on in the piece and
4:49
they're going to manage us right throughout our pregnancy and will tell us to continue exercise if there's no
4:55
complications in the pregnancies and we'll talk a little bit more about if there are complications the different
5:01
types of exercises that we can do and the mo is able to refer us off to
5:07
different special exercise classes if we you know do come under that umbrella of
5:13
having complications in our pregnancy which you know which does happen to a certain percentage
5:19
of our pregnancies in terms of our maori and pacific lead
5:26
maternity carers and we can elect to choose these online as we choose our uh
5:32
individual lead maternity carer and some of the aspects of uh for example um
5:38
maori birthing previously you know squatting and holding on to posts during uh the birthing process was
5:46
really important so potentially your exercise plan you know this may be important to you so as you work through
5:52
your different exercise program if this is important for you to do a specific
5:58
type of birthing bring this up with your physiotherapist exercise rehabilitation instructor or
6:04
whoever you're working closely with to create your exercise program informing your manager can often feel
6:11
like quite a daunting task especially if you know you've had previous miscarriages and find this a difficult
6:18
conversation to have but as soon as you're really uncomfortable to do this this needs to happen
6:25
to make sure that yourself and your baby are kept safe so that they are able to alter the duties in and around you
6:33
so that you're working in a safe way to keep yourself um well and still involved in work
6:41
but in a way that's not going to compromise yourself or your pregnancy unless you elect to do so you're not
6:46
required to attend formal pt unit sports field exercises shift work drill or parades which you
6:52
probably know but there are some people that you know want to keep doing this and so it's just
6:58
a matter of you're making it really clear with the you know with your manager and with the mo whether this is
7:05
going to be safe for you to do so within the new zealand defence force the
7:12
mo is able to refer you for a pelvic health physiotherapist review and
7:18
this is really important to do often we do it around the 20-week mark the pelvic health physiotherapist we'll talk to you
7:25
about specific exercises that are important to do for example our pelvic
7:30
floor and core are going to be really important the pelvic health physiotherapists are
7:36
the only people that are actually able to give us feedback whether we're doing these exercises
7:42
right and with your consent they will do an internal examination to make sure that there is correct activation of the
7:50
pelvic floor muscles the pelvic floor muscles which we talked about in a couple of pages away
7:55
are really important because there's a lot more weight put on these muscles uh
8:01
during pregnancy as we carry that additional weight and then these muscles are going to be really key for
8:07
the um birthing process when we push the baby out so the stronger and more
8:12
functional these muscles are during during our pregnancy the more likely we're going to be able to bounce
8:19
back quickly after and not have some of the complications that can come following pregnancies such as urinary
8:25
incontinence or painful sex and all the things that are
8:31
really important in our normal functioning lives after you have been cleared to continue
8:39
exercising book an appointment with either the physiotherapist or the your
8:44
local uh exercise rehabilitation instructor and some people have said well like you
8:49
know who do i book an appointment with with physiotherapists they are obviously
8:55
movement specialists who if you have if you know if you have any injuries or any
9:00
specific sort of medical stuff they're going to be really good at that for our exercise rehabilitation
9:07
instructors they've done special coursing in pre and postnatal training and have a really
9:13
good understanding of specific exercises to do and to not do
9:18
during exercise and you can catch up with both of these people as well and as we talked about during pregnancy it
9:24
sometimes feels like a bit of a blur of appointments and scans but it is important that you've got all of the
9:31
support around you and getting all the information that you need specifically around exercising and keeping healthy
9:37
and well so in this booklet it's got a couple of links there for booking them with the
9:42
physio or if you don't know who your rehabilitation instructor is in your camp there's an email there to touch
9:48
base and find out more so getting into the specific
9:55
points about exercising during pregnancy the pregnancy program is designed to
10:01
maintain good pelvic health and good health correction core health to prepare your
10:06
body for birth and recovery if you've been for example a runner before pregnancy
10:14
you can keep doing that but it's just a matter of changing the intensity and duration
10:20
during this during pregnancy it's not about whether can i it's more about
10:25
should i and during this period it's not about trying to get our personal best and sometimes it feels like it's a
10:32
little bit of a competition to do so like oh i could still do that during my pregnancy and that's really great if
10:38
some people are talking like that but really keep going back to that tagline um
10:43
can i you know versus should i and i really cringe when i look back on some of the
10:50
things that i was doing in my pregnancy and but i think the fact that we now
10:55
have you know really clear recommendations of what we should be doing and shouldn't be doing and as i say it doesn't mean that you have to um
11:03
you know only do these exercises if you are lifting a lot of weights beforehand you can still lift weights but it's just
11:09
a matter of reducing that intensity and reducing the you know the sort of weight that you're throwing around
11:18
the recommended type of exercises that we should be doing is moderate intensity exercise including
11:25
aerobic activity walking swimming water aerobic cycling low impact aerobics for
11:31
30 minutes for most days of the week you might want to jump into pregnancy
11:36
exercise classes such as pilates pregnancy yoga yoga hydrotherapy aqua
11:42
jogging but we can also do a lot of strength stuff as well which is going to be
11:47
really important particularly around preparing the body for childbirth so light to moderate resistance training
11:53
using bands or weights and if you're used to doing weights keep doing them but just decrease the load
11:59
the amount the range of movement as your pregnancy progresses and if you've already engaged in
12:04
vigorous activity or are highly active and if you feel well enough you can
12:10
continue to do this but just really stay closely monitored with the with your lead maternity carer and
12:16
continue to ask yourself you know can i versus should i
12:21
the type of things that are not recommended are activities where
12:28
such as rugby where there's collision where there could be um you know after that three month
12:34
period and the baby has moved up out of the pelvis we want to avoid any
12:39
type of activities type of pt sports you know where there could be a collision the fast change of direction
12:46
stuff so when we're going through pregnancy as you're aware our um the relaxin
12:54
and hormones change to make our body more flexible more subtle to prepare the
13:01
body for childbirth so if we're doing those quick direction quick change of direction type
13:06
activities there's an increased chance that we may become injured because our joints are more
13:13
lacks and flexible it's not recommended that you conduct heavy weight training so the you know
13:20
one repetition maximum you know particularly where the breath changes and you know there's a really
13:26
bearing down on the pelvic floor uh endurance exercise so we talked
13:32
before about you know if you're an endurance runner call you can continue
13:38
to run but it's recommended that you don't run for over 60
13:44
minutes because of the increase of our body temperature
13:50
and our fetus our baby its temperature is two degrees higher than ours anyway and so we just want to
13:57
be really aware to not increase our temperature too much because it's going
14:02
to increase you know the baby's two degrees more than ours which moves us into the next one
14:09
activities that cause a rapid or prolonged increase in heart rate for over 60 minutes are not recommended the
14:15
heart is already working twice as hard as normal so our hearts during pregnancy
14:20
work as hard as what the cyclists do and the tour de france in terms of how much blood we're pumping
14:26
around the body and activities that cause our heart to work at really high intensities are
14:34
not recommended for long periods of time exercising in high
14:40
temperatures or high humidity similarly is going to increase our temperatures too much and the babies
14:47
for some people who really have um
14:54
a lot of joint laxity through the relaxin um it may be painful for them to do
15:00
squats and lunges and any exercise that place pressure on the low back and groin
15:07
so for example if in your exercise program you know there is squats
15:12
you just want to take it to a point that's comfortable for you and not go into a deep squat or not go into a wide squat and
15:19
you know because there's so much changes to the hormones in and around the body
15:24
exercises where you lie flat on your back after 20 weeks are not recommended so anything where you're doing core
15:31
stuff just pop you know a bolster or a pillow or do it in a sitting position after that 20 week period and that's
15:38
related to the uh compromise of the the blood vessels in the back so we want to make sure
15:44
obviously that baby's getting lots of blood to the area exercise that cause coning or doming of
15:51
your abdominal muscles so if you're doing a sit up for example and the
15:56
abdominal is coming into a coning shape it means that we're putting too much pressure in on the on the core
16:07
um so those abdominal exercises will go through you know the type of core
16:12
exercises that will be suitable for doing during pregnancy
16:18
um if you get any of these symptoms stop exercising so if you develop shortness of breath
16:23
in term i mean when we're exercising obviously we want to increase
16:29
the you know increase our
16:35
breathlessness but you know we still need to get air in and should still be able to talk so if you get to a point
16:41
where you're unable to breathe that's you we need to stop immediately and um
16:46
call the dhc or head on down chest pain deep calf swelling any vaginal bleeding cramps or pain
16:55
uh contractions any leaking of amnionic fluid and have sharp intense pain in the
17:00
pelvic region you need to stop exercising immediately and touch base with the defense health
17:07
center or your lead maternity carer and then if you're feeling um unusual
17:14
sort of muscle pressure feeling dizzy faint develop a headache and you know just touch base with your lead maternity
17:21
carer immediately for our warm up and cool down
17:29
during a pregnancy our blood volume doubles and our heart will work twice as hard as what it normally does
17:35
and therefore our warm up should just be a real gradual increase of this heart
17:40
rate so it could be going for a light jog or it could be jumping on the bike or the cross trainer
17:47
cooldowns same again should be gradual and really concentrate on bringing that
17:53
heart rate back down to its base rate and just a really light cardio activity of your choice
18:01
stretching exercises are important as part of this cool down but we just want
18:06
to take it to a point of discomfort in those vigorous end range stretches and not recommended during pregnancy because
18:14
as we talked about the relaxin you know our joints and muscles are already a lot more flexible and subtle
18:20
than what they usually are so we just want to take the stretches to a point of discomfort and
18:28
not vigorous ones the talk test during exercise so we want
18:33
to when we're exercising we still want to be able to have a conversation it should be a little bit hard but we
18:40
shouldn't be gasping for breath you should be doing enough to make you breathe deeply but shouldn't have to
18:46
gasp for breath if you can say a whole sentence before having to take a breath your activity is
18:53
about right let's talk about
18:59
the anatomy of a couple of really important uh parts of the body during pregnancy so the pelvic floor
19:07
are a strong group of muscles which attach from the front of your pelvis to the back of the tailbone
19:12
they are a very important group of muscles as they are the base of our abdomen and the
19:17
floor of our core and if we can really make sure that these muscles are strong and functional
19:24
during our pregnancy then it's going to make it a lot easier for childbirth and we are going to be
19:33
able to bounce back a lot easier after having baby and avoid
19:39
complications that come with pelvic floor dysfunction our deep core and stabilizing muscles
19:46
are really important to keep strong and functional during pregnancy uh
19:52
this will help us maintain a good posture as our center of gravity changes
19:57
keep the muscles strong as they stretch to accommodate the growing baby support our spine and pelvic joints to
20:04
prevent low back pain pelvic pain or groin pain and work with the uterus to help to push
20:11
the baby out and therefore core muscle strengthening and pelvic floor strengthening really
20:18
make up a key part of our pregnancy exercise program
20:25
we'll talk a little bit about the first trimester and
20:30
the changes that occurring in that first trimester so often in our first
20:35
trimester you know we are completely naked we might be unwell and feeling pretty
20:43
crook and if possible you know we still want to stay active in this if we can and
20:49
just exercising in those days where we're feeling well enough to do so
20:54
our energy levels may be low and morning sickness may occur so
21:00
we just want to do what we can so even if it's just a short walk around the block that's still going to be really beneficial for ourselves and baby
21:07
joints and ligaments become hyper flexible during pregnancy and we just need to assure ensure we're not over
21:13
stretching the joints and ligaments during this time the hormone relaxin stays in the body
21:19
for three months following birth and for three months following breastfeeding and so it's important to
21:26
gradually return to training following birth and breastfeeding for anyone that
21:31
has a miscarriage over this time it's often you know we'll want to
21:37
i guess sort of avoid the grief and get straight back into training as soon as we can but
21:42
a point here is you know there's still going to be the high levels of relaxing in the body and a lot of people do
21:47
experience injury during this time and so if they're you know if you
21:54
do have a miscarriage during this time don't rush back to exercise because there you know the body is going to take
22:00
a while to come back to normal and this is the same with termination also
22:07
hydration it's really important that we stay really well hydrated during that first trimester and throughout pregnancy
22:14
so take a water bottle along to your workout and drink throughout our workout
22:19
and we want to make sure that we're drinking at least eight to twelve glasses a day and the body needs so much
22:25
more water during pregnancy because it's creating more blood more amniotic fluid and you know doing
22:32
um amniotic fluid producing extra blood volume and carrying the nutrients to to
22:37
flush out any wastes and toxins so it's really important that we keep up a really high hydration during pregnancy
22:45
so exercise during the first trimester generally we can keep doing what we were
22:52
doing but we need to decrease the intensity try to keep the heart rate below 120
22:59
beats per minute and manage the temperature and ensure you're not overheating
23:04
and making sure that we add pelvic floor and deep core exercises into our routines
23:12
we've got a bit of a checklist there which is a lot of appointments and scans and just making
23:17
sure that we're touching base with the right people
23:23
pelvic floor strengthening exercises how do we do these you've probably heard of kegel exercises and on this page it just
23:30
talks about how we do these kegel exercises and the easiest way to start doing it is lying on our backs we talked
23:37
about we don't want to lie on our backs after the first 20 weeks but before then
23:43
that's fine we want to start lying on our back
23:50
just because this is the easiest way to get them working as we exhale we want to
23:58
lift and contract the pelvic floor muscles and cues that might help you do this
24:05
to visualize a marble at the opening of your vagina
24:10
and visualize it sucking it up into the vagina for some people the cues
24:16
such as you know suck up a tampon or hold in a fat
24:22
or stop yourself peeing you know grip on a straw and you know suck up the smoothie
24:28
so there's different cues that may work for you but we want to maintain this maximal effort for
24:35
10 seconds ideally or up to 10 seconds if we're still you know working up to it to it and we don't have that endurance
24:42
quite yet we then want to fully relax and repeat this for
24:49
10 times so we're working on the endurance aspect because these are how these muscles work however we also want
24:56
to work the fast twitch aspect of the pelvic floor and how we do this is we do
25:03
ten quick flicks so we do the you know the suck up and the pull of the
25:10
pelvic floor muscles but really quickly for 10 seconds
25:15
for our deep core muscle strengthening similarly the easiest way to get into
25:20
these is lying on our backs we want to put our hands on our hip bones and just come in
25:25
one centimeter if we do a small cough we will feel these muscles contracting
25:31
underneath our our fingers to get the deep core muscles working
25:38
and similarly on our exhale breath we just want to draw in slightly at the abdomen at the
25:45
underlying we want to hold for 10 seconds keep breathing throughout and complete five to ten rep repetitions of
25:53
this and this is our real sort of entry level stuff to make sure that these muscles
25:59
are working and activating and the more that we progress through our pregnancy and
26:06
working these muscles they're going to get stronger and we're going to be able to
26:11
get them contracting and you know sitting and standing and as we're doing our exercises which is what we want to
26:16
progress to in
26:21
in each of the trimesters we have included in this booklet uh
26:28
the pelvic floor and deep core muscles there's a youtube link
26:34
that you can click onto to watch our model do these different exercises
26:42
which may help also there's also a strengthening component
26:48
and we're not by any matter of means saying that you know you need to do this
26:54
exercise program as we talked about whatever you have been doing prior to becoming pregnant you can keep doing
27:00
that but just changing up the intensity and how much weight you're
27:06
lifting and the duration and so we've put this these exercise components in here if
27:13
you're like oh far out like i really don't know where to start so there's a push and a pull and a squat and a lift
27:19
and we just want to do these with a weight that you're comfortable doing
27:25
and as i say you know you don't have to do this program but it's a safe
27:31
type of exercise that you can do during pregnancy if you're starting exercising just make
27:37
sure that you go down and catch up with your exercise rehabilitation instructor and they'll make sure that you're doing
27:42
all the exercises right as you go on similarly there's a link there that
27:48
um will take you through to a video of um mary alice going through this
27:55
exercise program and a bit of core stuff at the end there
28:02
nice and moving into our second trimester during our second trimester
28:09
the baby's getting a little bit bigger hopefully we've got some of our energy back and hopefully some of that morning
28:15
sickness will have passed so we can start getting into our training a little bit more um the breast tenderness may have
28:22
subsided but you know the breasts are still growing and probably starting to feel
28:28
heavy as the milk ducts develop
28:33
stretching and thinning of the abdominal muscles during pregnancy is normal
28:40
and will go back to normal after we have baby
28:45
however exercise during this trimester should not put additional pressure on
28:50
those abdominal muscles and core muscles so exercises that work the rectus
28:55
abdominis that muscle at the front of our core the superficial ones
29:01
such as sit ups bicycles leg throws are not recommended during this time because the
29:09
abdominal muscles are already under quite a lot of pressure as they thin and
29:15
separate for accommodating the growing baby repair and recovery from diastasis recti
29:22
which is the normal sort of thinning and separating of the rectus abdominy usually takes between 6 and 24 months to
29:29
come right following birth following birth the
29:34
lead maternity carer and your pelvic health physiotherapist and the you know eri will be able to
29:42
advise you you know whether they're whether you you know do have diastasis recti
29:47
and specific exercises such as the deep core muscles and the pelvic floor muscles are going to be
29:54
really key for helping this return back to normal
30:00
maternity support belts can be really helpful for people that are experiencing
30:05
pelvic pain and joint pain i understand that you can you know touch
30:10
base with your defense health center or ap and physio to order these belts if this is important to you
30:17
however you might just want to grab one online or at one of the stores so smiley
30:22
bouts or some roll abouts are common in new zealand and they're made of like that thick wetsuit type material and
30:29
often people who are pregnant um you know find these really really comforting
30:34
to just support the low back and pelvis a lot better
30:40
let's talk about our bladder and what is normal so a healthy bladder doesn't leak
30:47
it tells you when it's full and gives you time to get to the toilet it can hold between 460 ml of urine and
30:55
empties you know once every two to three hours you may wake up
31:01
in the night you know particularly in that first trimester and third trimester when there's a lot more pressure on the
31:07
bladder and a normal bladder completely empties each time
31:12
an unhealthy bladder leaks urine when coughing sneezing
31:17
lifting jumping skipping and running and if you are experiencing any of this
31:24
during your pregnancy touch base with your pelvic health physiotherapist
31:29
following referral from the medical officer to make sure that the
31:35
pelvic floor are working well uh other signs that you need you know
31:40
that that the pelvic floor isn't working as well as it needs to be is if you have a sudden urge to pee
31:46
if you need to go to the toilet more than every two hours um you know if there's a heaviness in
31:53
your underpants if it can't hold enough urine you know less than 300
31:59
millimeters you have to get up more than twice per night um it does not feel comfortable after
32:05
you've been to the toilet and passed urine and the urge is so strong that you can't get to the toilet in time so this
32:11
is not normal and you just make sure that you get the scene to a lot of people particularly in our military just
32:18
like oh well you know it's you know everybody you know like i've talked to other ladies and this is normal for them to like pee when they're
32:25
you know doing a skipping rope and just because it's common it doesn't mean that it's normal
32:31
and we don't want to have long-term problems problems from our pregnancy you know we
32:36
want to bounce back and be fit and deployable so make sure you get this sort of stuff sorted out rather than just putting it
32:42
off for um you know i'll be fine
32:48
exercise during the second trimester your bump will be growing and things like running or high impact activities
32:54
will start to feel uncomfortable so try swapping them out for a low impact activities such as walking or
33:00
swimming and group training classes are fun um but make sure that you let your
33:06
instructor know that you are pregnant and they'll just be able to keep an eye on you and give you progressions and regressions of
33:12
exercises when required exercising lying flat on your back is not recommended after the 20 weeks so up
33:19
to do exercises in a sitting or inclined position
33:25
here is some exercises for the second trimester pelvic floor and
33:31
core so in this trimester we're doing the pelvic floor
33:36
and core in our four point kneeling position and this is still a nice easy position to get the pelvic floor and
33:43
core muscles working in terms of our strength training program it's the same
33:50
exercises as before but they've just been regressed so instead of doing
33:56
a press up on our knees on the floor we're doing an incline press up against a bench press in this activity and the
34:04
in the second trimester um our model here is using dumbbells so
34:09
i mean you can continue to use barbells if you want to and we've just regressed
34:16
the the amount of weight and the um yeah the weight and intensity of
34:21
these exercises so exactly the same exercises as the first trimester strength stuff
34:28
but we're not going quite as deep and we're not lifting quite as much
34:35
we've added in a pregnancy stretching pregnancy stretching program into the
34:41
second trimester as well and the first one
34:46
you know just sitting down and coming and really connecting with the breath is going to be important and really seeing
34:52
if we can start to teach the body to breathe wide so there's going to be not
34:57
so much room for our lungs sitting here so if we can really teach and initiate that wide
35:03
breathing that's going to be good for when the baby starts to get bigger and pushing on all our lungs and
35:10
organs as we move into our third trimester baby
35:18
is rapidly putting on weight which make which may make you feel heavy tired sore
35:24
and achy you might feel discomfort in your pelvis hips back as the ligaments loosen to
35:29
prepare for labor so during this as we talked about we
35:35
you know are probably going to be feeling tired and sore so we want to
35:41
change our exercises so we're still doing it but the intensity is going to be light
35:46
potentially things like swimming and aqua jogging is going to feel a lot better for us in
35:52
this trimester because it's going to take that weight off the feet knees tummy
36:00
it's normal to gain a 20 weight gain during pregnancy and i
36:05
think that often you know when we get pregnant we'll think that we'll have the baby and then you know put on our size 8
36:13
jeans and walk out of the hospital and i think it's important that you know we do take a long-term approach to our
36:20
bodies and that we've gone through a pretty amazing transformation and created life
36:26
and out to the back of it you know have probably come out with stretch marks and
36:32
ziggy bits that we didn't used to have and really take that long-term approach and don't put pressure on yourself to
36:39
you know squeeze into those jeans and walk out of the hospital because it's going to take a long time for your body
36:45
to get back to normal for me about two years and you know for some
36:51
people longer than this so i think just really taking that long-term approach to
36:56
you know the changes that your body goes through and how long it's going to take
37:01
to get back to normal the you know talking to fitness trainers that work in this
37:06
industry you know one of their comments were you know working with
37:12
postpartum females excuse me if they
37:17
from from their sort of experiences if ladies have had you know babies less than sort of two
37:25
years apart then the body doesn't really go back to that initial sort of state and so
37:32
generally with babies sort of three years apart that you know the body can go back to that
37:38
you know full strength full fitness and so i guess the point that i wanted to make there is that we just really
37:44
need to take a really long term approach of what our bodies will look like as we've
37:50
put on the extra weight to grow a baby uh the baby will add pressure onto your
37:56
organs which may lead you to feel breathless have heartburn and go to the toilet
38:03
often and continue exercising as long as you feel well enough to do so and continue those
38:10
continual checks with your lead maternity carer up to 45
38:16
of our ladies you know do experience back and pelvic pain the maternity belts
38:22
might help uh you know staying nice and strong through the the core might help
38:28
and you know catching up with a physiotherapist is going to be beneficial as well other things that we can do is reduce
38:35
the distance and speed of our walks avoid uneven terrain reduce stride
38:41
length avoid activities where you cross your legs um getting in and out of the car
38:48
you know just imagine like there's a zipper up the thighs and keeping the legs together as we pivot out of the
38:54
car so it doesn't bring on that groin and pelvic pain similarly if we're getting up out of bed in the morning
39:01
zip put that zipper you know right up the thighs and keeping the legs together avoiding activities where we stand on
39:08
one leg and sitting down for dressing and putting on shoes so it doesn't put you know so much weight and this won't
39:14
be relevant to everyone but you know there's some people in the end of that third trimester where everything is just
39:21
sore and hurting and achy so we just want to really make sure that we're not putting additional pressure by standing
39:27
on one leg by crossing the midline that sort of stuff
39:33
pelvic floor injury and dysfunction is common in pregnancy and postpartum woman
39:40
and up to 80 of women will leak when they are pregnant and over 30 percent
39:46
will continue to leak after childbirth although this is common it is not normal
39:53
so if this is happening it's not normal and make sure that you are touching base with your pelvic
39:59
health physiotherapist to you know really get this sorted
40:05
exercise in the third trimester swimming is going to be um
40:12
really nice for us and you can continue exercising unless you know your maternity carer has advised against it
40:19
so low pay low impact activities such as strength training walking and swimming is going to be good during this time
40:33
when we move into our third trimester for our core and pelvic floor we can
40:38
either do this in sitting or in side lying and it's the same exercises just the positional change
40:45
similarly our strength training is the same exercises but the weight might be lighter and for our press up we've gone
40:54
from an incline press up to a wall press up
41:00
we want to continue our stretches during the third trimester also
41:07
hey and that concludes the main points for our pregnancy and exercise presentation uh
41:14
congratulations to all of you out there who are currently hapu or may have
41:20
partners who are happy the key points is if you know you were
41:25
already training you can keep doing that training but continue to ask yourself um you know just because i can do it you
41:31
know doesn't mean that i should do it and you know growing a life inside us is a pretty exceptional
41:40
um thing to do and so we want to make sure that we're looking after ourselves and baby
41:45
as we go as we progress through our pregnancy we can keep doing the same exercises but we're just changing the
41:51
duration changing the intensity and working within what our body can do wishing you all the best for your
41:58
journey and thank you very much for your time today thanks
42:04
thanks so much roland and we've just got a question as well from one of the attendees um if you don't mind
42:12
so they've said is there any appetite in engaging with the lmcs so they are able
42:17
to work for defence i attach to our medical facilities for our defence personnel sometimes wanting
42:24
that separation um from defence in this case
42:29
nice that's a really good question which i'm going to write down because i think that's an amazing idea
42:36
and as we you know look to have our multi-disciplinary teams all located in
42:42
that same position you know in that same location man how cool would that be and i'm going to write that down thank
42:48
you good
42:56
question perfect right well i think we'll um oh no we've got another question coming sorry
43:04
um somebody's just asking as well if there would be any way to access the powerpoint after the webinar as well
43:12
yeah of course so um maybe i'll send it to you laura i've um
43:18
posted it up on our facebook page which is called nzdf
43:24
um force health physical performance so you can get it off the
43:30
um facebook page there this is the this will be released within the next
43:36
couple of weeks so it's just sitting with dpa at the moment we've just got a few more changes to make and then the
43:42
booklets will be printed and they'll be at the defense health centers and it'll be up on the health website
43:50
and yeah hopefully the nzdf social media will be able to post it as well so and
43:55
answer your question yes absolutely this is not the final product but it's um you know the content won't
44:00
change it'll just be a couple of things that need to be updated so if i send that through to you
44:07
laura and the people that want it um can touch base with you will that work
44:13
yes that's perfect um i can i'll pop our integrated wellness email address in the
44:19
chat um as well and so if yeah anyone wishes to yeah get a copy of your slides
44:25
um they can contact us that way as well great perfect all right well thank you so much
44:32
for your time um and yeah for i think there'll be a lot of people out there that will get a lot of use out of
44:38
this and um be able to get some yeah real um valuable guidance from this so no thank you so much and yeah i think
44:45
we'll we'll wrap up there awesome thanks laura thanks for having me.