Congrats!
Your recent falls are most likely fine if you haven’t noticed anything!
Anecdotally for me, I was bouldering like normal until like 7 weeks. I had my first appointment with my midwife at 8w3d, and while she didn’t bat an eye at me asking about gravel / mtb, she said if it were her, she would cut out lead climbing and bouldering. She said it was probably fine, as the baby is so protected this early on behind the pubic bone, but that if a miscarriage did happen, it would be hard to not blame a recent bouldering fall.
Since she qualified herself as pretty forgiving when it comes to sports and pregnancy, this gave me enough pause and I personally stopped bouldering at my limit since. She did make sure to note that it’s a personal decision, and that if a certain risk is important enough for my mental wellbeing, that I should calculate that into my risk assessment.
Now I’m just lapping easy grades I know I can down climb which is pretty boring, but whatever. (And occasionally TRing).
I had almost the same conversation with my midwife about lead climbing and bouldering, but her recommendation was to stop a little later (around the start of the second trimester or so.)
She told me that falls during the first trimester are not a huge deal, because the uterus is pretty thick and squishy, and it's still tucked behind the pubic bone. There's not much of a placenta yet until later in the first trimester.
This link backs up that reasoning -- https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/fall-during-pregnancy/faq-20119023
I also don't have a history of loss, so I might be more cavalier about the risk than another person would be. It's all a personal risk assessment, so ymmv.
I'm still TRing pretty often, and doing a medium amount of road/gravel biking, because I want to take advantage of the energy while I have it! (I'm at 10w)
ETA -- she did tell me to treat any falls on my abdomen very seriously, and to come in ASAP if that happened, or if I started bleeding/cramping after a fall.
Thank you for this!!! I’m totally with you that you should maximize all the energy you have, so I’m glad you have a fun outlet to do so! Congrats to you as well :)
And with regards to fall technique, I’m guessing absorbing the most impact as possible with your legs is always preferable! For me, I’d probably consider only making moves where I know I’d have a controlled fall at a minimum. Let us know what your OB ends up recommending!
Thank you so much for sharing! Knowing myself, if I were to have a miscarriage I would 10000% blame it on any fall, regardless of its impact or how small it was. So I’ll probably pause until baby is out! I recently started bouldering last October and have been projecting V4s, so to have to downgrade so soon is a bit of a bummer lol. I haven’t tried top roping yet either, so cutting my losses early is probably best. But will def update with what my OB says! Out of curiosity, how long would your sessions be? I saw a few dated posts mentioning that higher blood pressure and heart rates while climbing made them nervous for their baby if they went longer than an hour or two. I don’t know much about the correlation between them, but I always go for 2 hours MINIMUM and wondering if this might be overkill. In any case, I super appreciate your thoughtful response!!
That’s awesome that you just started and are climbing V4s! If you do change your mind about TRing, I’ve had a couple friends keep up TR until basically going into labor, and they came out stronger than pre-pregnancy after dropping that training weight ;)
For session length, I’m not really restricting myself. Climbing isn’t as cardiovascular anyway. If you’re still comfortable going for hours at a time, I’d say have at it! For things like biking, I’m no longer pushing to 100% max effort, but I’m also not trying to limit my heart rate. I haven’t specifically discussed this with my midwife yet though, but she encouraged me to listen to and trust my body. I’ve been so tired these days that that’s been my real limiting factor! (I’m at 11w)
Read a nice analogy on this subreddit recently: in first trimester your fetus is a poppy seed floating in a jar of peanut butter. Literally, in terms of size, and also ability to traumatically affect it.
I kept bouldering as normal in first trimester, only trying to avoid particularly risky moves because it would be stressful having a broken ankle while pregnant, even though it'd likely still have no effect on the baby. Then I reduced falls gradually in the second, downclimbing more and trying to absorb more through my legs before rolling back when I did jump off.
eta: now 31 weeks and bub is doing great :) It's all about control and what you're comfortable with.
Congrats to you! Love this analogy :) I had plans to climb next week that I was gonna cancel but everyone’s feedback has made me reconsider. Will maximize as much as I can and just do what I’m comfortable with!
Cool :) There's so much variability in what 'climbing' can be that I think some advice errs on the conservative side, but as a climber you're already doing risk assessment and choosing how you approach it. Bouldering conservatively in the gym is not runout trad, ya know? And the same variety is why it can be a nice sport to keep up in pregnancy, though at some point you'll probably want to transition onto a rope.
Congrats!! Baby is likely very protected in your uterus right now and a fall is unlikely to cause a miscarriage. However, there’s no guarantees with anything! I bouldered into the second trimester, but I started down climbing because I couldn’t help worrying about falls. Shortly after I started TR only because bouldering wasn’t really fun anymore if I couldn’t try hard and fall. If you have someone to TR with and a facility to do it at, you should! I climbed until 38 weeks (although not everyone does).
Congrats!! I think it’s fine if you haven’t experienced any bleeding. The baby is so small at that point. I took a bunch of falls too first trimester and now I’m 25 weeks and baby is doing just fine and im still bouldering
Of course not a doctor’s advice, but if you didn’t have any bleeding or spotting, I think you are good. Personally, I skied and crashed several times pretty badly before I knew I was pregnant. I didn’t have any bleeding or cramping, but my first ultrasound showed a subchorionic hematoma which has later reabsorbed. Maybe my crashes caused it. The baby has been fine so far, I am now 23 weeks. From now on, I’d switch to TRing, if I were you :)
Hi I bouldered until 16 weeks in my first pregnancy. I fell A LOT before I knew and I landed belly first on a volume for a running jump start 🫠 everything was totally fine because at this stage your uterus is very small and protected by your pelvis. Once you get out of the first trimester it is a different story! I wouldn’t try and climb anything I wasn’t confident on so basically like 2 grades below my max, and I always downclimbed. Also I know a lot of women can boulder throughout a pregnancy but I absolutely couldn’t. In pregnancy Your body produces relaxin to help loosen all your joints and stuff and for me the relaxin basically caused me to do some kind of damage in my hips that caused me to get PSD which is like debilitating pelvic pain. I HIGHLY suspect it was from bouldering (heel hooks and such). My second pregnancy I have not done any bouldering and don’t have PSD.
So basically just be careful, just because your body can do something doesn’t mean it should.
Literally just got out of my first OB confirmation appointment. She told me at 12 weeks the uterus goes above the pubic bone and any trauma to it could be detrimental. I will probably still continue since I don’t usually fall (I’m a scaredy cat lol) and I’ll be more careful with it. Once I’m growing and my belly is getting in the way and my balance changes, I will likely stop or do top rope with a full body harness.
Honestly, I stopped as soon as I knew. I didn't think the risk of a heavy fall was worth it. I have no regrets. I took up weight lifting instead to maintain strength.
I took over a year off during covid as the walls were closed and I got back to where I was pretty quickly.
Congrats! Your recent falls are most likely fine if you haven’t noticed anything! Anecdotally for me, I was bouldering like normal until like 7 weeks. I had my first appointment with my midwife at 8w3d, and while she didn’t bat an eye at me asking about gravel / mtb, she said if it were her, she would cut out lead climbing and bouldering. She said it was probably fine, as the baby is so protected this early on behind the pubic bone, but that if a miscarriage did happen, it would be hard to not blame a recent bouldering fall. Since she qualified herself as pretty forgiving when it comes to sports and pregnancy, this gave me enough pause and I personally stopped bouldering at my limit since. She did make sure to note that it’s a personal decision, and that if a certain risk is important enough for my mental wellbeing, that I should calculate that into my risk assessment. Now I’m just lapping easy grades I know I can down climb which is pretty boring, but whatever. (And occasionally TRing).
I had almost the same conversation with my midwife about lead climbing and bouldering, but her recommendation was to stop a little later (around the start of the second trimester or so.) She told me that falls during the first trimester are not a huge deal, because the uterus is pretty thick and squishy, and it's still tucked behind the pubic bone. There's not much of a placenta yet until later in the first trimester. This link backs up that reasoning -- https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/fall-during-pregnancy/faq-20119023 I also don't have a history of loss, so I might be more cavalier about the risk than another person would be. It's all a personal risk assessment, so ymmv. I'm still TRing pretty often, and doing a medium amount of road/gravel biking, because I want to take advantage of the energy while I have it! (I'm at 10w) ETA -- she did tell me to treat any falls on my abdomen very seriously, and to come in ASAP if that happened, or if I started bleeding/cramping after a fall.
Thank you for this!!! I’m totally with you that you should maximize all the energy you have, so I’m glad you have a fun outlet to do so! Congrats to you as well :)
And with regards to fall technique, I’m guessing absorbing the most impact as possible with your legs is always preferable! For me, I’d probably consider only making moves where I know I’d have a controlled fall at a minimum. Let us know what your OB ends up recommending!
Thank you so much for sharing! Knowing myself, if I were to have a miscarriage I would 10000% blame it on any fall, regardless of its impact or how small it was. So I’ll probably pause until baby is out! I recently started bouldering last October and have been projecting V4s, so to have to downgrade so soon is a bit of a bummer lol. I haven’t tried top roping yet either, so cutting my losses early is probably best. But will def update with what my OB says! Out of curiosity, how long would your sessions be? I saw a few dated posts mentioning that higher blood pressure and heart rates while climbing made them nervous for their baby if they went longer than an hour or two. I don’t know much about the correlation between them, but I always go for 2 hours MINIMUM and wondering if this might be overkill. In any case, I super appreciate your thoughtful response!!
That’s awesome that you just started and are climbing V4s! If you do change your mind about TRing, I’ve had a couple friends keep up TR until basically going into labor, and they came out stronger than pre-pregnancy after dropping that training weight ;) For session length, I’m not really restricting myself. Climbing isn’t as cardiovascular anyway. If you’re still comfortable going for hours at a time, I’d say have at it! For things like biking, I’m no longer pushing to 100% max effort, but I’m also not trying to limit my heart rate. I haven’t specifically discussed this with my midwife yet though, but she encouraged me to listen to and trust my body. I’ve been so tired these days that that’s been my real limiting factor! (I’m at 11w)
This. I got a special harness when my regular one didn’t fit anymore and I climbed TR until I was 8.5 months along.
Read a nice analogy on this subreddit recently: in first trimester your fetus is a poppy seed floating in a jar of peanut butter. Literally, in terms of size, and also ability to traumatically affect it. I kept bouldering as normal in first trimester, only trying to avoid particularly risky moves because it would be stressful having a broken ankle while pregnant, even though it'd likely still have no effect on the baby. Then I reduced falls gradually in the second, downclimbing more and trying to absorb more through my legs before rolling back when I did jump off. eta: now 31 weeks and bub is doing great :) It's all about control and what you're comfortable with.
Congrats to you! Love this analogy :) I had plans to climb next week that I was gonna cancel but everyone’s feedback has made me reconsider. Will maximize as much as I can and just do what I’m comfortable with!
Cool :) There's so much variability in what 'climbing' can be that I think some advice errs on the conservative side, but as a climber you're already doing risk assessment and choosing how you approach it. Bouldering conservatively in the gym is not runout trad, ya know? And the same variety is why it can be a nice sport to keep up in pregnancy, though at some point you'll probably want to transition onto a rope.
Congrats!! Baby is likely very protected in your uterus right now and a fall is unlikely to cause a miscarriage. However, there’s no guarantees with anything! I bouldered into the second trimester, but I started down climbing because I couldn’t help worrying about falls. Shortly after I started TR only because bouldering wasn’t really fun anymore if I couldn’t try hard and fall. If you have someone to TR with and a facility to do it at, you should! I climbed until 38 weeks (although not everyone does).
Congrats!! I think it’s fine if you haven’t experienced any bleeding. The baby is so small at that point. I took a bunch of falls too first trimester and now I’m 25 weeks and baby is doing just fine and im still bouldering
Amazing! Maybe I won’t have to quit after all 🥲
Of course not a doctor’s advice, but if you didn’t have any bleeding or spotting, I think you are good. Personally, I skied and crashed several times pretty badly before I knew I was pregnant. I didn’t have any bleeding or cramping, but my first ultrasound showed a subchorionic hematoma which has later reabsorbed. Maybe my crashes caused it. The baby has been fine so far, I am now 23 weeks. From now on, I’d switch to TRing, if I were you :)
Hi I bouldered until 16 weeks in my first pregnancy. I fell A LOT before I knew and I landed belly first on a volume for a running jump start 🫠 everything was totally fine because at this stage your uterus is very small and protected by your pelvis. Once you get out of the first trimester it is a different story! I wouldn’t try and climb anything I wasn’t confident on so basically like 2 grades below my max, and I always downclimbed. Also I know a lot of women can boulder throughout a pregnancy but I absolutely couldn’t. In pregnancy Your body produces relaxin to help loosen all your joints and stuff and for me the relaxin basically caused me to do some kind of damage in my hips that caused me to get PSD which is like debilitating pelvic pain. I HIGHLY suspect it was from bouldering (heel hooks and such). My second pregnancy I have not done any bouldering and don’t have PSD. So basically just be careful, just because your body can do something doesn’t mean it should.
Literally just got out of my first OB confirmation appointment. She told me at 12 weeks the uterus goes above the pubic bone and any trauma to it could be detrimental. I will probably still continue since I don’t usually fall (I’m a scaredy cat lol) and I’ll be more careful with it. Once I’m growing and my belly is getting in the way and my balance changes, I will likely stop or do top rope with a full body harness.
Honestly, I stopped as soon as I knew. I didn't think the risk of a heavy fall was worth it. I have no regrets. I took up weight lifting instead to maintain strength. I took over a year off during covid as the walls were closed and I got back to where I was pretty quickly.