Well, I dont know from personal experience since we never got preggo, but.
When we were trying to get pregnant I asked my doctor if I were to become pregnant, could I plan to compete in the marathon I planned and he said "yes" exercise is good for you, I asked if I could compete in upcoming tri's and he said the same thing "yes". Keep in mind also at the time I was 38 and no spring chicken when it comes to being pregnant. If I were to be preggo, and physically able to continue running, biking and swimming most definitely I would compete.
Some people I have heard here on this site said they disagreed which is fine. Mostly it was men though worried about the woman getting kicked. Well I have never been kicked in the stomach by another swimmer, infact if you think about it , it would be normal to get kicked in the face and not the stomach, the other swimmer would have to be under you somehow. I have however had people swim over the top of me, but that would have no affect on the baby. And I usually put myself out to the side away from people anyway.

Really it comes down to how comfortable you are with it and how comfortable your doctor is (and what ever health issues you may have)

P.S any time I see a girl out running, etc I think "you go girl" . My mom ran 5 miles the day my little brother was born, so I think it is just normal for me to think that away :)

[quote=brittda]My mom ran 5 miles the day my little brother was born, so I think it is just normal for me to think that away :)
[/quote]
was that the alaskan taxi service? [ :) kidding of course!]

my wife was very active up to 5mos before she felt she needed to back off. (not triathlons...ie we were building a retaining wall at our house, and we couldn't get her to stop helping). I have heard of others being active up into the 7th month. So, it's up to you and how you feel.
Just keep it in control and don't set expectations for something that may not happen...healthy kids come first!
good luck and have fun with your planning!

As long as you were training prior to becoming pregnant you can continue. However, thre comes a point where your body temp can get to hi and harm the baby. Everything goes by the doctor. I did step class till I just felt to wierd and the baby moved. The bike was tricky, becuase you don't want to fall. Then comes everyone telling you what to do. I actually read books and just made sure to check with the doc on everything we did. I was going to compete in the being, but I made the decision not to.

I would worry the baby would fall out. Furthermore, if you wiped out on the bike and landed on your stomach, the baby could sustain some damage. I will recomend to my wife that she works out in a non-impact way, but then again, I am the one who asked if you can leave a baby at home while you go to the grocery store. I have lots to learn...

[quote=tholosophy]I would worry the baby would fall out..[/quote]

I sincerely hope you are kidding :)

There definately is the chance of crashing, yes it could happen but you could also get hit by the bus crossing the street. I suppose if you are prone to this it would be best to not compete. Again it comes down to how comfortable (physically and mentally) you are with it and what the doc says. Most doctors will allow you to continue running if you have been prior to pregnancy (and biking and swimming are non impact).

I do think the attitud toward exercise with women who are already active and those who are not is different. Those of us who do a lot would like to continue as much as possible and not be a couch potato.

I have always heard that pregnant women aren't supposed to ride bikes. I don't know if it's because if messes something up down there, but I'm guessing it's just because if you wreck, you could easily kill your baby.

as a physician (internal medicine/pediatrics), i would not recommend riding a bike in pregnancy, because of the dangers of falling. most importantly, though, is to consult with your ob/gyn or family practitioner. hope that that helps.

kawika

There is a great blog by a women who is a speedy tri girl and having her first. Check it out: http://aliciaparr.com/blog/. She has moved to a cruiser bike just because the others were uncomfortable. I'd probably avoid riding on streets if I was pregnant just like I'd be more careful crossing them -- I wouldn't be come a recluse, but I also wouldn't take as many day to day risks as I do now.

[quote=ChunkyB]I have always heard that pregnant women aren't supposed to ride bikes. I don't know if it's because if messes something up down there, but I'm guessing it's just because if you wreck, you could easily kill your baby.

[/quote]

My wife is 5 months pregnant right now and she is able to swim and run, but her doctor said absolutely no bike riding because of this very reason. He said she could ride on the stationary trainer, but no outside riding.

I was told, when I was pregnant (I wasn't doing tris at the time) that it's mostly a balance thing- Your center of gravity changes, and personally, I became more clutzy than I already am, so riding a bike might be difficult for that reason. Also, you get super sensitive "down there" and if you were to hit a bumpy patch- it could be very bad. Everything just feels a lot more "pressurized" and I can't imagine riding a bike after the 3rd month would be comfortable at all. (And the 1st 3 months- if you are not barfing everyday- more power to you!)

I trained while pregnant with both of mine. I ran until it got uncomfortable around 6 months, and swam 3,00 yards a few hours before my daughter was born. But I stopped biking very early on in each pregnancy. To me, the risk of a crash and an abdominal impact is just too high. I also would not compete in a tri, because you're not supposed to let your body temperature or your heart rate get too high. I actually knew a gal who competed into her 7th month and she lost the baby a couple of weeks later. That was before I had kids and I have no idea if the two things were connected, but after that I definitely did not compete while pregnant either time.

My 2 cents: pregnancy is just the first step in parenthood where you have to start thinking about somebody besides yourself. And you have to get used to it. It's just not all about you anymore, LOL. That's a hard one for many driven, athletic people to wrap their brains around (myself included here). But putting the baby ahead of my triathlon goals was just the first of many times when I would make compromises and changes to my own plans for the good of my kids. There are always more triathlon seasons out there. I had 10 seasons before my first pregnancy, and now I've had 10 seasons after, so I can definitely attest that triathlon life goes on, even if you take a summer off for pregnancy here or there.

One more possibility - one of the women on my Team in Training team got pregnant during our training season this year. She ended up doing the swim and run of the Oly triathlon, and had a friend do the bike for her, and had a great time. I got a cute photo of her "maternity" wetsuit!

Thank you all for starting this post, we want to start having kids in about a year and was wondering about pregnancy + triathlons. One of the girls I work with is a triathlete too and just gave birth to a baby girl (12 lbs!) She said that she stopped the cycling very quickly becuase her balance was way off. She did yoga and walking most of the time.

My question is, how do you know if your body temp is getting too high? And what is too high? Just wondering, we have talked about this A LOT! He wants kids pretty much right away! Any tips for pre-pregnancy?

my wife's doc gave her a HR threshold to stay under

Read books and check with your doctor. The heart rate you can monitar with watches, but the body temp is difficult. Again, it is different for each person.

I'd quit working out for the day, before I couldn't keep a conversation going or the sweat felt like it wouldn't go away. I focused a lot of heart rate. Higher the hot rate, more the body is getting heated. I always called the doc when I questioned something and if it didn't feel right, I just wouldn't do it.

I like what Ironmom wrote about stop thinking about yourself and think about the kid. It is very true. I think I caught up in muber of races and distance after baby then before.

Web has lots of info too, but check with the doc on what you read and maybe more then one doc.

Pre book- What to expect when you are expecting? and the Girlfriend's guide.

Have a great journey..

I have heard many of the same things on here. In order not to keep the temp to high, you have a heart rate threshold to stay under. I have heard a generic number thrown out but I wouldn't even bother to post that here because I think it would be different for each person.
I am planning as well and have wondered the same things. My dr. said don't worry if you do a tri while pregnant and don't know if you are yet (so less than a couple weeks along). She also seems like she'll be supportive of the excercise afterwards.
My particular plans are to keep training but without any sprinting. I also fear that I would be endangering another life if I was in a bike crash so I will stick to the trainer and an occasional ride on my mom's comfort bike on closed bike paths. I have heard that in the last trimester it becomes uncomfortable for many women to keep running and in addition, there is greater potential to loose balance or strain something because bones and muscles are getting softer. I will run as long as I am comfy doing so, but will switch to power walking as soon as I start loosing my balance. But I will definitely keep on swimming and will probably try some water jogging. My sister said she couldn't do couldn't do certain strokes very well near the end because her balance was off (I don't recall which ones though). She also really enjoyed the elliptical machine as a running alternative during her pregnancy. And If I NEED to race, I will do the swim leg of a relay. That's my top leg and people are always looking for swimmers on the relays.

with the blessing of my doctor, i ran until i waddled, and was able to ski (alpine) until i started to show. the skiing ended on it's own, as it gets harder to balance, and the same was true with biking. her take on it was once you show, the baby is no longer in the protective custody of your pelvis and is at risk of impact in a fall.

If you are healthy and don't have any exception issues you can do lots of activities. There are activities that may have safety concerns for the baby but the exercise is good for mom and baby.

Consider Paula Radcliffe too
Paula Radcliffe, the British distance runner who holds the world record in the women’s marathon, ran throughout her pregnancy last year. She even ran the day before she gave birth to a healthy baby, (more)...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/sports/othersports/03runner.html

And she went on to win the NYC marathon too ;-)

I think a lot of it depends on your own unique physiology, the size and shape of the baby and where you carry it. Each woman and each pregnancy is different. My babies were over 2 lbs different in size from each other, so I was able to run and work out a lot longer with my 2nd, a much smaller girl, than with my bruiser of a boy (9+ pounds, born almost 3 weeks early). Also, some people feel a lot more effect from the hormones that relax your ligaments in the last trimester. For some women, it's downright dangerous to try and run when their joints are so loose. Some women have longer torsos and their babies fit much more compactly, some women have short torsos and their babies tend to stick WAYYYYYY out. It's obviously much harder to run if you're one of the latter.

In general, I don't think it's a good approach to try and do what anyone else is capable of doing during a pregnancy, but listen to your own body and make sure that what you're doing is right for your own body and your own baby. I can tell you there's no way in heck I could've run the day before giving birth. I'm one of those long-legged, short torso people who looked like she was carrying some kind of torpedo-like projectile, LOL. My abdominal muscles actually tore apart from their connecting tissues (ouch!) in my first pregnancy, so running would've been extremely ill-advised.

[quote=beads1985]If you are healthy and don't have any exception issues you can do lots of activities. There are activities that may have safety concerns for the baby but the exercise is good for mom and baby.

Consider Paula Radcliffe too
Paula Radcliffe, the British distance runner who holds the world record in the women’s marathon, ran throughout her pregnancy last year. She even ran the day before she gave birth to a healthy baby, (more)...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/sports/othersports/03runner.html

And she went on to win the NYC marathon too ;-)[/quote]

And now she has a stress fractured femur and is questionable for the Olympics. :(

My wife ran two half marathons while pregnant, the second one at 5 months, and continued to run until 7 mos. The guidelines we used were to not get out of breath, and not get too hot.

Her recovery has been brutal. She had to be induced, lost alot of blood in the birth, and pushed for 2-3 hours. Three months later, she's finally able to run without pain, but her stamina is shot. She's barely up to 3 miles without walking. Was hoping to do an ultramarathon in Sept. :(

If you are lucky enough to have a complications-free labor and not lose too much blood, then it's possible to be even faster after you give birth! (Increased blood supply, kinda like natural EPO.)

The variation between women and their experiences in pregnancy/post labor is VAST. If you feel ok running during and after, do it! If you have trouble with it, don't get discouraged, that's perfectly normal too. Just be patient and don't overdoit.

I sure hope Paula Radcliffe is able to run in Beijing. She's amazing, never having lost a marathon that she finished (?). This years' marathons (men and women) are really going to be exciting. Go USA [Kastor and Hall]!

It bothers me when people say things like "go for it, train up until 7months if you can, other people have done it!" I used to have that mindset until my GP put it this way: "you are almost 40, this may be the only healthy baby you can have, imagine if you had an accident and lost your baby, how would you feel then?" What I say to people who are thinking about going into a tri when they are pregnant. Please, it's not about you anymore. Triathlons will always be there. Take a season off and see your baby through a healthy pregnancy and birth. Sure you may not be as fit as you were before, and getting back into it is not easy. But you can start back up slowly and build your base. My running and biking times are not as good as there were pre-pregancy but I am slowly improving and entering some of the shorter events. For the swimming it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue. I also think its important to set your goals a bit lower and improve your times in the shorter events before competing in an ironman or half-ironman right after pregnancy (unless your are already winning in the shorter events!). Your body goes through a lot during pregnancy and birth, and will adjust to physical activity if you go slow and don't push yourself to much. I found a great website for beginner triathletes that talks about how to go from couch to competition, and has great advice for new triathletes. There is no shame in getting out and walking for a month before even attempting to jog after giving birth. I just had my first baby and and having no trouble getting back into the tri circuit, however I have decided to only compete in the shorter events this season.

Welcome to trifuel Hamlet cat.

I think those of us(me included) were trying to be encouraging when advising them to 'go for it'.
I would never want harm to come to anybody especially during pregnancy, but in the past women have been discouraged from doing anything during pregnancy because of their 'condition'. Now studies show moderate exercise is great for mother and baby.
Obviously the baby's health is very important, and having a healthy baby is worth slacking off a little. ;-)

Thanks. I am new to the triathlon sport, I have only been doing it for four seasons and I just love the sport. I had only two seasons under my belt and was training for an ironman when I found out I was pregnant. Naturally I was concerned about how it would affect my goals and training. I did a lot of research online and most of the websites had advice saying not to let the pregnancy stand in your way: "keep training and competing." My doctor advised against it, because of the risk that something could happen and cause me to lose the baby. To me it was just worth it to take a season off, even though the risk is low. All that needs to happen is for some women to have a bike accident and lose their baby and then maybe all the blogs and websites will change their advice to women. I have only competed in 15 events but have seen a bad bike accident where a women went down and hit the curb pretty hard. She didn't cause the accident, but something like that could cause a miscarriage. I just don't think women should be encouraged to participate in triathlons during pregnancy. And at very least stay off the bike for just nine months. I just wanted to present another side to the argument, its only one season off. True the risk is low that something could happen, but imagine how she would feel if she lost her baby knowing that it could have been prevented by just sitting out one season. I am not finding it that difficult to work back up to a reasonable level of physical fitness. I don't have an ironman in my near future, but I still am able to participate.