ultrarunningmom

This is my first post about running while pregnant. I don’t plan on making all my posts about running while pregnant, even as I get further a long in my pregnancy. But, I do plan on throwing them in here every so often.

I know from searching online there’s a lot of personal stories about running while pregnant and what women were running and not running while pregnant. And while all of this is very encouraging and useful, I find that it’s also a little lacking because it doesn’t go into the changes that occur in your body when you’re pregnant and how those change running. So, that’s what I’m hoping to do with my pregnancy posts.

One of the things that began to plague me from early in my pregnancy is the congestion. At first it was only at night. Now at 19 weeks, it’s all the time. The increased congestion is caused by a couple of things. The increased blood volume and hormones. The increased blood volume and estrogen cause swelling in the lining of the nasal passages and that causes more snot. The extra blood also causes the tiny blood vessels in your nose to swell. All of this leads to what has been coined pregnancy rhinitis.

Being congested while you run can be interesting. As your body temperature increases, the snot clogging your noes gets runny, which means you can breathe again, but there’s a cost. It can make your throat sore and irritated because its running down that way or it can make it, so you want to snot rocket all over what ever happens to be to your right or left. For me, that’s another person since I’m running on the treadmill (too much pollution outside). Another pleasant result of the snot beginning to run is then it makes you cough or sneeze.

Pregnancy Rhinitis can begin around eight weeks of pregnancy (yep) and then continue until you deliver the baby. After the baby, it should stop within a few weeks. Having allergies makes things worse of course and the constant stuffy nose can lead to sinus infections.

So what can you do about it? If you start your run all stuffed up, it’s going to make things more interesting when you get going. Using a humidifier at night will keep the drainage action going and help you start your run with clear nasal passages (you have to buy one for the baby anyway, might as well make sure you chose a good one and see how it works). Use saline drops or spray to clear your noes before your run or inhale steam.

If it gets to be too much, contact your doctor or the mother to baby hotline 1 (800) 822-2229 or email them expertinfo@mothertobaby.org They are the experts of what goes through mom’s system and into baby’s. They have tons of research on hand on what medication, vitamins and all sorts of other stuff can be harmful to a baby growing in utero.

I know knowing how much you can run while you’re pregnant is a challenge and it’s all subjective. Let your body tell you how much is okay and be prepared to listen. I’ll post how much I’m running each week at the end of my pregnancy posts, but again how much you should run while pregnant depends on many factors. Make choices best for YOU and YOUR BABY.

Weekly miles: 36, running three days a week.