There are two types of people: those who do their homework, and those who fly by the seat of their pants. It’ll come as no shock to any reader of this blog that I’m very much a do-my-homework kind of gal.



During pregnancy I wanted to do as much homework as possible to make sure I was doing everything “correctly.” Unfortunately, the Internet is a horrible place to visit when you’re pregnant, with all of its worst-case-scenario prognoses on every site—especially if you have anxiety issues.



But what was even worse than reading about all the bad stuff that could happen to me during pregnancy was the fact that I found virtually no information on climbing while pregnant. Or any information I did find explicitly said that it was the worst idea ever, and that even thinking it foreshadowed how terrible of a mother I would be.



During my first trimester, I was also keeping the news of my new-found “condition” a secret, mostly out of fear—fear of losing my job, fear of losing sponsors, and just a fear of being open and vulnerable in a way that I’d never been before. My default is to always crawl into a shell with hopes that uncomfortable situations will dissipate. Unfortunately, my growing midsection made pregnancy a time when I couldn’t hide.



So naturally I did what any scared introvert would do, I started writing blogs about it to share with the world 🙂 And, who would have thought that when I started writing about my pregnancy, I was greeted with an outpouring of warm reactions and support from women all around the world. It made all that anxiety disappear, and pretty soon I couldn’t wait to share more of my story on this blog. And, even more importantly, we (meaning all the readers, women and moms out there) were starting an important discussion about what it means to be a climber who is pregnant, in postpartum, or just thinking about one day becoming pregnant.



Ultimately, two doctors approached me about doing a medical survey on climbing pregnant and postpartum experiences. Of course, I jumped at this opportunity to support the creation of new information—information that I know I would have loved to have had at my disposal when I first found out I was pregnant.



Below are the results of the survey. We got 325 responses from women around the world about 339 pregnancies, which is incredible. I’ve also included some comparison notes from a similar study of 110 female runners*. I hope that there are women who will find this information useful.



Most women from the survey climbed well into their pregnancies and only a small percentage had an injury. Overall, from the results, it seems that the women were able to use climbing as a healthy form of exercise during pregnancy.



Special thanks to Long, Jenny, Lester, Colin and Randy for compiling the survey and getting it out there. Here’s to keeping the dialogue open, to being open with our fears and concerns and our successes!

* Tenforde, A., Toth, K., Langen, E. et al, “Running Habits of Competitive Runners During Pregnancy and Breastfeeding”. Sports Health. March/Apr 2015, 7:2, (172-176)

Average Characteristics of Respondents Our Respondents US National Average Age at delivery 31 years 25-29 years Weight gain during pregnancy 31 lbs 25-35 lbs recommended

>50% gain more Gestational Age at Delivery 39.5 weeks

Climbing During Pregnancy * EGA = estimated gestational age Average EGA* when you limited your climbing? 20 weeks (+/- 10 weeks) Average EGA* when you started wearing a pregnancy harness? 78.4% used one

Average EGA* 21.6 weeks Average EGA* when you stopped climbing? 31 weeks (+/- 8 weeks) Did you sustain any injuries while pregnant? 6% did Did you notice a change in your strength? 74% did Did you notice a change in your joints? 59% did Did you notice a change in your balance? 73% did

Running Study Comparision

70% ran at some point during pregnancy

57% ran through second trimester (roughly 26 weeks)

34% ran through third trimester

They decreased their intensity and distance by about 50% during pregnancy, as compared to non-pregnant levels

3% sustained a running injury during pregnancy

Complications During Pregnancy/Delivery % of Respondents US National Average * Women who suffered a miscarriage were probably less likely to fill out the survey, so this reflects a bias in our sample, it does not mean that climbing leads to a lower miscarriage rate. ** The 20-40% bleeding rate of the national average also includes women who went on to miscarry, whereas again, our survey was more likely to be filled out by women who did not miscarry. Since women who bleed are more likely to miscarry, there is naturally be a lower bleeding rate in our study since most of our respondents had pregnancies carried to term. Miscarriage* 0.6% 13-26% Gestational Diabetes 2% 6-7% Pre-eclampsia (toxemia) 2% 3.4% Bleeding during pregnancy 9.8%** 20-40% first trimester, rare after** Severe post-partum bleeding requiring transfusion 0.6% 0.4-1.6% Vaginal Tear or episiotomy of 3rd degree or higher 14% Routine recovery within 6-8 weeks 96%

Delivery Statistics % of Respondents US National Average C-section delivery 19% 32% Vaginal delivery 81% Used an epidural 50% IV pain meds during labor 25%

Postpartum Average time to return to climbing after delivery? 3.5 months Did you breastfeed? 96% did Did you notice a change in milk volume when you started climbing again? 7% did

Running Study Comparision