Mom defends run-up to birth
In a guest post today, my wife Katrina Hull responds to the criticism of women who ran right up to giving birth.
I’d like to think I’m like Amber Miller, Susie Weber, or even Sue Olsen.
Miller and Olsen ran marathons late in their pregnancies and delivered healthy children. Weber biked to the hospital through her contractions. She gave birth to a healthy girl.
Like Olsen, I completed Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota in just under five hours, although a year, not days before giving birth. She was still about 10 minutes faster. (Yes, I run slower than a pregnant woman).
In all honesty, my path to motherhood was more sedentary than that of Miller, Weber or Olsen. I spent the last six weeks of my pregnancy in bed on doctor-ordered house arrest. I logged miles back and forth from bed to the bedroom and the kitchen.
Like the more-active ladies, however, I listened to my doctor and had the extremely good fortune of delivering healthy babies. This is why I find the judgmental criticism of Miller and Weber unfair. We all consulted our doctors. Mine advised me to take it easy. Miller and Weber were advised to continue their fitness habits.
These women should be celebrated, not excoriated. They gave their daughters incredible birthday gifts. They modeled a healthy, active lifestyle, even if viewed to be extreme by the masses. Keep in mind that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 72 million Americans are obese.
Setting a healthy example has personal benefits, as well. Running helps me view my body in a positive light. After conquering hills, my legs feel strong, not fat. My body carried me 26.2 miles with minimal discomfort in June 2010, and carried two babies for 37 and half weeks.
Running also strengthened my friendships with other women as we bonded over long training runs and shared race-day stories. Those friendships run deep in a way shared lattés could never match.
Training for a marathon taught me to embrace challenge and to enjoy a run for the experience of being in motion, not for success. I am a slow runner. I finish at the back of the pack. But I enjoy fresh air and the challenge of running farther than I ever thought I could.
My post-pregnancy runs have been short; no more than three miles.
I take great joy in pushing a double stroller on walks up to six miles, along my old running routes from our Bay View home to Lake Michigan and back. These routes now include a coffee stop to counteract the nightly interruptions in sleep.
My daughters turned four months this week.
We’ve shared a wonderful summer together. Though they usually nap during our long strolls, I like to imagine that deep in their subconscious minds they will remember from their first months the sounds of ice clinking in a glass (an iced coffee in the stroller’s cup holder) and the gentle lapping of Lake Michigan waves; and these sounds will bring them peace.
Though Evelyn and Eleanor will likely have no conscious memory of our walks together, I hope to provide them with the gift that Miller, Weber and Olsen gave their children. I hope to share with my girls a sense of adventure, the willingness to embrace life’s challenges and the internal peace of a long journey by foot.
6 Comments for "Mom defends run-up to birth"
Runner Girl Oct 20, 2011 11:38 AM
I've defended the training, and general safety of run/walking at that speed (15min/mile), when in comparison to other typical and "acceptable" behaviours (second-hand smoke, overweight/obesity, caffeine consumption, risk from car accidents, etc.) But, as a runner and a medical researcher, my primary concern is optimal health. I can't strongly defend this as a "good" idea for optimal health, so I won't celebrate Amber's decision, and do not think it is commendable.
First, "permission" from a doctor is vastly different than "tolerance" of an activity, and tolerance from one individual doctor is vastly different than the collective wisdom of the medical community.
Why draw an arbitrary line at a prepartum marathon as worthy for celebration? Why not a 50k, 50miler, 100 miler? Just because marathons are more "common," we can't blindly support any distance without drawing a line somewhere. What we do know is that marathons are stressful on the body, and optimal health for pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding would not suggest heavy activity right before birth, creating a situation of inflammation, stress hormones, free radicals, elevated CPKs and heart rate, etc. and nutrient depletion exactly when the baby could most benefit from a healthy mother.
If you're training for a marathon for months, the precise time your immune system is most compromised is the hours and days directly after. This is the time you want to be in a hospital, the riskiest place for infection?
To put it more simply: nobody runs an optimal marathon by running a previous marathon just hours before it.
Why wear out your body on something silly right before something important? I run a lot, but I know enough to prioritize. Why sign up in the first place? You are free to run 26M from your house at any time, but signing up for a race and then feeling compelled to do it has a level of spectacle and attention-seeking that is tangential to an actual love of running.
madcoca Oct 20, 2011 3:30 PM
With professional oversight today, most women who are healthy when pregnancy begins are probably creating little-to-no risk from continuing their physical fitness routines. Scour the data and I'm comfortable you'll find more complications in early life are the result of maternal obesity, smoking, drug use, etc. Being and staying healthy are not harming our young ones.
I personally know more than one woman who continued skydiving actively (dozens of jumps per week) in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy, and had normal, healthy babies.
Our ancestors did not have super-cool ram-air parachutes. But they did have to run from mastodons, while carrying hollowed-out gourds full of water.
seekfun Oct 21, 2011 9:57 AM
andypt7 Oct 24, 2011 12:44 PM
I -cannot- speak with experience regarding pregnancy, but you're absolutely right: childbirth still is a risky endeavor, worth preparing the body as best as possible for a successful delivery, if your primary concern were optimal health for mother and child.
I -can- speak for the marathon (and beyond) distance and its challenges: I don't have a particularly high regard for it, and am more likely to run the distance as a quiet, solo training run than a hyped race. Don't get me wrong: I love races, but I wouldn't see a point to pressing on to do one if I were sick, injured, pregnant, or had other more important commitments. Even still, I know it takes a toll on the body. It's important to separate the distinction of being healthy enough and trained to do a marathon, versus feeling compelled due to signing up and actually doing it minutes before delivery. For that reason, my opinion of this is that it is more of a compulsion and a stunt.
madcoca Oct 26, 2011 12:04 PM
Clearly, being fit and exercising is (shown to be) better than not. But that's different than run/walking a marathon immediately before delivery.
madcoca Oct 26, 2011 12:10 PM