Customer Reviews

Fit and Pregnant: The Pregnant Woman's Guide To Exercise

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Now in a revised and expanded edition, Fit & Pregnant: The Pregnant Woman's Guide to Exercise presents the medically sound advice of nurse, midwife, athlete, and mother of two Joan Marie Butler for pregnant women of all backgrounds. Though Fit & Pregnant pays especial attention to the concerns of highly athletic women and particularly professional athletes, the needs, concerns, body changes, and exercise guidelines for all pregnant and postpartum women regardless of background are covered. Fit & Pregnant explores the beneficial effects exercise can have on the pregnant body, from types of exercise that can reduce the risk of postpartum urinary incontinence to general health and fitness promotion. Fit & Pregnant also covers which specific exercises are best avoided particularly in the second trimester onward, how to lift weights safely, and how to scale back particularly intense regimens - pregnant women are advised to train not for professional competition, but rather specifically for the "event" of delivering a healthy baby. Also discussed at length are the changes a pregnant woman's body goes through, what to expect and prepare for, and means to maximize health and safety throughout the experience. Enthusiastically recommended for expectant mothers everywhere.

I had written this review a couple of weeks ago, which strangely never got posted. Hmm..odd. In all honesty, there is nothing in this book that: 1) can not be obtained from other reputable sources for free, and 2) already fitness conscious women (the reader demographic targeted by this book) do not already know.

Two things in this book: 1) go easy while you're pregnant, a fairly obvious point elaborated and repeated through various different women's stories a thousand times over, for length - not depth. And 2) every pregnancy is different, so find what works for you. I would hope that the author would have spent some time actually providing specific guidelines as to *how* to find that point of appropriate intensity. Instead, this point is counterintuitively illustrated by various different women's stories, to illustrate how everyone has a different definition of a good exercise level during pregnancy. I'd like to find out mine; if everyone is different as pointed out numerous times, I don't think all these other stories are of so much interest to me.

I've no idea why my previous review didn't make it; I do hope this one does - in the spirit of democratic public opinion.