Pregnancy and grappling

[cakegirl]

Can anyone tell me if there are any guidelines for pregnancy and grappling?

e.g. how early in the pregnancy a woman should stop grappling

whether she should stop grappling even if she's only trying to get pregnant

etc.

May I pre-empt you by saying that there probably will be no such information available because there isn't much out there for the NON pregnant women, let alone the pregnant ones...

[eXcessiveForce]

I don't know of any guidlines but I would suggest that grappling be stopped until after delivery. The risks simply outweigh the gains from training.

[cakegirl]

Yeah, it's obvious that once a woman's got a "bump", grappling would be a bad idea. But what about early on in the pregnancy, when the baby's as big as a fingernail. I wonder if grappling would have no effect, or whether there'd be a chance that the foetus may detach from the uterus from pressure, or jolting.

Then again, they've OKd netball for pregnant women I think, which is more jolty than grappling. But I'd still be concerned about the pressure from knee-on-belly, etc.

[IPON]

There are activities women can continue while pregnant, but as EF said you have to look at the risk/benefit ratio. A accidental kick, throw, knee etc could cause miscarriage just lack of nutrition can cause miscarriage or defects.

[Hardball]

COMMON SENSE would tell me NOT to grapple while I'm pregnant. DuH!!!

[Szczepankiewicz]

And how did you get pregnant, Hardball?


CG,

I wouldn't. I wouldn't let my wife. It's only a 9 month break. Not worth risking. Too many things can go wrong in a normal pregnancy without adding any additional stress.

Drills should be ok (some of them) but I wouldn't advise rolling at all.

Good luck.

Spanky

[Hardball]

Sorry, I was not trying to Troll or hurt anyone's feelings. Now with that said, I got common sense a long time ago.

[joedoe]

You should probably talk to a doctor, but from what I understand if you were grappling before you got pregnant, then you should be able to grapple when you are pregnant (obviously being careful of situations where you may receive trauma to your belly area). The way it was explained to me was that if you ran marathons before pregnancy, you should be able to run marathons when you are pregnant.

[cakegirl]

Joedoe, that's what I was thinking to a certain extent. I have plenty of karate friends who kept up training until about 6 weeks before the baby's due date. I'm assuming, though, that once a woman was pregnant enough for their tummy to be sticking out, it's got to be a bad idea. But I was more wondering about when the foetus is really small. I mean, I remember when my friend was pregnant, and she would tell me - my baby's as big as my thumbnail now, or my baby's as big as my pinkie, or whatever.

Don't worry, it's not an urgent question... I'm not pregnant, and not planning on it any time soon. I was just curious more than anything else.

[eXcessiveForce]

I look at it this way.

First justbecause something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

Second how would you feel if something did happen and you knew that you caused it to happen. If you could live with yourself knowing that by rolling you damaged your baby or lost it then that's one thing, but if you couldn't handle that then it's a completely different situation.

It's a personal decision, but any instructor that allows it better have damn good insurance, because something happens they can damn well bet that they are going to lose their school due to negligence.

I also wouldn't want to be the mother in certain areas because you could end up defending a child endangerment charge if you were unlucky.

[academian]

Well said, I just dont think its worth the risk Ask your O.B. about safe fitness exercises. to maintain yourself until you can start grappling again.