climbing while pregnant

Hi girls, wanted to see if I could find some more info on what everyone's experience has been climbing during pregnancy.

How long did you climb into pregnancy? Did you lead and for how long? Did you take any falls on lead?

I hear as long as you were doing it before it's ok to continue for as long as it feels ok. 

Would love to hear about your experiences.

<3 

Dad over here. 

My wife did not lead climb after getting pregnant (she did do some lead climbing in the first several weeks to a month before we knew we were pregnant.)

She switched over to a full body Mountain Mama brand harness when she felt she needed it, I think that was somewhere in the 2nd trimester. 

She was top-roping very well right up until she gave birth, I have some photos of her TRing a tough 11c just a couple weeks before giving birth which is only a couple letter grades below her pre-pregers grade.

Your experience might be completely different, she had a very problem free pregnancy. 

BE CAREFUL with your joints! Apparently the hormones from pregnancy causes some major changes in your tendons/joints making them super loosey-goosey and it can be easier to injure yourself.

ETA now is the time to pressure all your climbing friends to also have babies, I'm so glad to have other climbers to share the experience with and without them, we would not get to climb nearly as often.

So, I’ve had a pretty rough pregnancy in terms of being woefully underprepared for the effect all the hormones would have on me, but here’s my experience:

I climbed as normally as I could between bouts of crippling nausea and exhaustion during the first trimester. I wasn’t too worried about falling. I was more worried about the waves of dizziness that sometimes happened and the occasional dry-heaving. These more than concern about the fall factor kept me mostly off the sharp end.

Toward the end of the first trimester it started feeling... different ... with my harness so I switched to the Mad Rock Mountain Mama I bought. It took a while to figure out how to adjust it properly (P.M. me for advice if you decide to use this model). I am just under 5’2“ and would not recommend this harness if you are any shorter - I was barely able to get it to fit me with most of the straps all the way tightened. I like that it is pregnancy-specific and has leg padding but it only has one gear loop which is a huge bummer. This harness comes with a little paper saying that it is only meant for top-roping so I emailed Mad Rock to ask about what might happen if, hypothetically, one were to take a fall while leading in it or catch a fall while lead belaying. The answer I got was that they “could not recommend anything but top rope climbing”. I took this to mean that the testing required to find out what effects of falling would be on a pregnant woman and her baby would be unethical and they didn’t want to get sued but that I should probably do what I wanted. In the spirit of calculated risks, I climbed almost exclusively with my husband and I didn’t lead while wearing that harness. He did, and I belayed him but we stuck to routes that were well within our ability and tried to avoid anything with major runouts.  I say tried, but it’s mostly amazing multi-pitch granite around here and that usually includes an easy but terrifying slab section. So we tried to be responsible but we were also lucky. 

On falling particularly: I did end up catching two minor lead falls during the early second trimester without a problem. I’m talking about very small, at or just above gear. Both times, he knew he was going to fall and was able to warn me and do it gently. Catching them didn’t feel any different than taking a top rope fall when you have a very dynamic rope that‘s not birthday-belay tight. However, it’s really important to have the harness adjusted properly so it doesn’t clutch your ribs and snap your butt back on the catch, very uncomfortable. Since the straps tend to loosen on their own, this means you need to be constantly checking and adjusting. 

The only time we thought there was potential for a real lead fall, we built a second, lower anchor and specifically directed it for upward pull. I belayed off of that instead of my harness. This turned out to be a smart move because he did take the fall, and it was a big one. Since the anchor wasn’t taut and I hadn’t lead belayed from an anchor before, I didn’t manage to pull slack in as quickly as usual so he took a longer fall than he would have if we’d been climbing normally. Even if he’d been belayed from my harness it would have been a big fall, but this fall resulted in an injury that shortened our climbing season. I don’t know if that injury could have been prevented with better rope management on my part. We both agreed that the anchor catch and ankle injury was much better than a potential baby injury would have been, but it felt shitty that he fell that far. My advice from this is to get familiar with belaying from an anchor. Build one at home and practice taking in slack quickly without fumbling the rope, or learning how to keep tension on the anchor so it’s less awkward to pull the slack in. Also, assess the climb and your ability. We both felt that the correct decision was made in this case. Things could have turned out better but they also could have been a lot worse. 

Around 28 weeks, I really started to feel like my balance was affected. More than that, I felt a sense of vulnerability that I haven’t experienced before. I found myself becoming a lot more intimidated by even minor swing potential or ledges while following and I was a lot less comfortable with having a little slack in the line. I just wasn’t climbing at my normal ability and I found that not knowing exactly what my ability was could be extremely unnerving. It didn’t help that it varied drastically from day to day. It was around this time that the weather was turning anyway so I never had to turn down a potential outdoor climbing day because of this. We simply chose easier routes or areas that had a good variety. 

Now I’m 34 weeks and the exhaustion has returned. We live very far to the North so there are only a few hours of daylight each day and it’s not warm or dry enough for outdoor climbing nor cold enough for ice (I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to do any of that before the baby comes). We do climb indoors on occasion but I have found that almost any effort results in major abdominal coning and I don’t really know how to prevent it. I can’t even do a dead hang from a pull up bar without coning. If you don’t know, coning is an indicator of intra-abdominal pressure, which can add to the potential of developing diastis recti. Diastis recti is when your abs separate. It happens to everyone and usually resolves on its own but in extreme cases you might need PT to correct it. I subscribe to a pregnancy workout program, which isn’t really much of a workout but has a lot of great tips on how to deal with your new balance and muscle structure. PM if you want to know more. 

I spend a lot more time lying on the couch than I expected to. I was able to keep up running throughout the second trimester but now I mostly walk and do kettle bell workouts for exercise and occasionally lifting (but much lighter than I used to).  Since I’m short and have a short torso, the baby is pushing all of my organs around and my lungs can’t fully expand so I get out of breath really quickly and easily (approaches were actually a lot harder than climbing for a lot of this pregnancy). Obviously every pregnancy is different and lots of people are fine the whole way through. I used to think it was really annoying when people would say “listen to your body” instead of giving me a real answer about something but during pregnancy, your body talks to you a lot louder and it actually starts to make sense. The times when I didn’t listen to it (like, “eh I can run another mile, I don’t need to walk this hill”) I ended up suffering the consequences and having to spend a lot more time recovering. If you do have a difficult pregnancy, my advice is not to wait until you feel like doing something, but try to notice the times when you don’t feel like you can’t do it. Then try to do it and sometimes it will feel great. If it feels terrible, just stop. 

Yeah so this got really long but in the off-chance you want to know more or just complain about how you haven’t pooped in a week and you’re haunted by the smell of your own refrigerator, feel free to send me a message. Otherwise, congratulations and good luck! I hope you get to have a very climb-ey pregnancy (Sorry but I’m assuming you are pregnant because you asked about it).

Zoe Stone wrote:

So, I’ve had a pretty rough pregnancy in terms of being woefully underprepared for the effect all the hormones would have on me, but here’s my experience:

I climbed as normally as I could between bouts of crippling nausea and exhaustion during the first trimester. I wasn’t too worried about falling. I was more worried about the waves of dizziness that sometimes happened and the occasional dry-heaving. These more than concern about the fall factor kept me mostly off the sharp end.

Toward the end of the first trimester it started feeling... different ... with my harness so I switched to the Mad Rock Mountain Mama I bought. It took a while to figure out how to adjust it properly (P.M. me for advice if you decide to use this model). I am just under 5’2“ and would not recommend this harness if you are any shorter - I was barely able to get it to fit me with most of the straps all the way tightened. I like that it is pregnancy-specific and has leg padding but it only has one gear loop which is a huge bummer. This harness comes with a little paper saying that it is only meant for top-roping so I emailed Mad Rock to ask about what might happen if, hypothetically, one were to take a fall while leading in it or catch a fall while lead belaying. The answer I got was that they “could not recommend anything but top rope climbing”. I took this to mean that the testing required to find out what effects of falling would be on a pregnant woman and her baby would be unethical and they didn’t want to get sued but that I should probably do what I wanted. In the spirit of calculated risks, I climbed almost exclusively with my husband and I didn’t lead while wearing that harness. He did, and I belayed him but we stuck to routes that were well within our ability and tried to avoid anything with major runouts.  I say tried, but it’s mostly amazing multi-pitch granite around here and that usually includes an easy but terrifying slab section. So we tried to be responsible but we were also lucky. 

On falling particularly: I did end up catching two minor lead falls during the early second trimester without a problem. I’m talking about very small, at or just above gear. Both times, he knew he was going to fall and was able to warn me and do it gently. Catching them didn’t feel any different than taking a top rope fall when you have a very dynamic rope that‘s not birthday-belay tight. However, it’s really important to have the harness adjusted properly so it doesn’t clutch your ribs and snap your butt back on the catch, very uncomfortable. Since the straps tend to loosen on their own, this means you need to be constantly checking and adjusting. 

The only time we thought there was potential for a real lead fall, we built a second, lower anchor and specifically directed it for upward pull. I belayed off of that instead of my harness. This turned out to be a smart move because he did take the fall, and it was a big one. Since the anchor wasn’t taut and I hadn’t lead belayed from an anchor before, I didn’t manage to pull slack in as quickly as usual so he took a longer fall than he would have if we’d been climbing normally. Even if he’d been belayed from my harness it would have been a big fall, but this fall resulted in an injury that shortened our climbing season. I don’t know if that injury could have been prevented with better rope management on my part. We both agreed that the anchor catch and ankle injury was much better than a potential baby injury would have been, but it felt shitty that he fell that far. My advice from this is to get familiar with belaying from an anchor. Build one at home and practice taking in slack quickly without fumbling the rope, or learning how to keep tension on the anchor so it’s less awkward to pull the slack in. Also, assess the climb and your ability. We both felt that the correct decision was made in this case. Things could have turned out better but they also could have been a lot worse. 

Around 28 weeks, I really started to feel like my balance was affected. More than that, I felt a sense of vulnerability that I haven’t experienced before. I found myself becoming a lot more intimidated by even minor swing potential or ledges while following and I was a lot less comfortable with having a little slack in the line. I just wasn’t climbing at my normal ability and I found that not knowing exactly what my ability was could be extremely unnerving. It didn’t help that it varied drastically from day to day. It was around this time that the weather was turning anyway so I never had to turn down a potential outdoor climbing day because of this. We simply chose easier routes or areas that had a good variety. 

Now I’m 34 weeks and the exhaustion has returned. We live very far to the North so there are only a few hours of daylight each day and it’s not warm or dry enough for outdoor climbing nor cold enough for ice (I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to do any of that before the baby comes). We do climb indoors on occasion but I have found that almost any effort results in major abdominal coning and I don’t really know how to prevent it. I can’t even do a dead hang from a pull up bar without coning. If you don’t know, coning is an indicator of intra-abdominal pressure, which can add to the potential of developing diastis recti. Diastis recti is when your abs separate. It happens to everyone and usually resolves on its own but in extreme cases you might need PT to correct it. I subscribe to a pregnancy workout program, which isn’t really much of a workout but has a lot of great tips on how to deal with your new balance and muscle structure. PM if you want to know more. 

I spend a lot more time lying on the couch than I expected to. I was able to keep up running throughout the second trimester but now I mostly walk and do kettle bell workouts for exercise and occasionally lifting (but much lighter than I used to).  Since I’m short and have a short torso, the baby is pushing all of my organs around and my lungs can’t fully expand so I get out of breath really quickly and easily (approaches were actually a lot harder than climbing for a lot of this pregnancy). Obviously every pregnancy is different and lots of people are fine the whole way through. I used to think it was really annoying when people would say “listen to your body” instead of giving me a real answer about something but during pregnancy, your body talks to you a lot louder and it actually starts to make sense. The times when I didn’t listen to it (like, “eh I can run another mile, I don’t need to walk this hill”) I ended up suffering the consequences and having to spend a lot more time recovering. If you do have a difficult pregnancy, my advice is not to wait until you feel like doing something, but try to notice the times when you don’t feel like you can’t do it. Then try to do it and sometimes it will feel great. If it feels terrible, just stop. 

Yeah so this got really long but in the off-chance you want to know more or just complain about how you haven’t pooped in a week and you’re haunted by the smell of your own refrigerator, feel free to send me a message. Otherwise, congratulations and good luck! I hope you get to have a very climb-ey pregnancy (Sorry but I’m assuming you are pregnant because you asked about it).

Zoe-

I might need to reach out to you about the full body harness! I have been debating about getting it.

To the OP:

I am currently 16 wks and climbing without issue. I feel a little weaker in the UE but that might be from a couple weeks off from climbing. I have been climbing through the whole pregnancy without difficulty. Still in my original harness. This is my first tho and i am not really showing. I have not done any lead climbing more so because i wasn’t very confident with lead climbing to begin with (only did 5.7 and never tried harder due to fear). I am still top roping at my normal skill level around 5.10 and still lead belaying without difficulty. The first trimester was hard more due to nausea and fatigue. This trimester has been better. Like everyone has said above, keep in mind everyone is different so listen to your body and be open with your doctor!

I am not sure how long i will climb for. My guess is i might need to consider a new harness at 18-20 wks. I am still debating whether to go the full body harness route or not. I climb mainly with my husband so we will have to consider lead belaying as well. Hope that helps and congrats!

My wife really liked the Mountain Mama harness. She chose to stop lead climbing, and top roped only during two different pregnancies. She felt comfortable doing so until only days/hours? prior to delivery.  

Jonathan Marek wrote:

Dad over here. 

My wife did not lead climb after getting pregnant (she did do some lead climbing in the first several weeks to a month before we knew we were pregnant.)

She switched over to a full body Mountain Mama brand harness when she felt she needed it, I think that was somewhere in the 2nd trimester. 

She was top-roping very well right up until she gave birth, I have some photos of her TRing a tough 11c just a couple weeks before giving birth which is only a couple letter grades below her pre-pregers grade.

Your experience might be completely different, she had a very problem free pregnancy. 

BE CAREFUL with your joints! Apparently the hormones from pregnancy causes some major changes in your tendons/joints making them super loosey-goosey and it can be easier to injure yourself.

ETA now is the time to pressure all your climbing friends to also have babies, I'm so glad to have other climbers to share the experience with and without them, we would not get to climb nearly as often.

Jon thank you for your input. I’m still early weeks but I took a couple of falls last week and that made me nervous so maybe no more falls for me. I can lead way below my grade or switch to top rope all together. Not a big fan of a top rope but it’ll do for now.

I’ll watch out for those joints, I‘m not there yet but I’ve heard it can cause problems.

Haha lucky(usually unlucky) me has a boyfriend who doesn’t climb so the idea is he’ll just hang out in a beautiful outdoors with the baby while I run up a few climbs. )

Zoe Stone wrote:

So, I’ve had a pretty rough pregnancy in terms of being woefully underprepared for the effect all the hormones would have on me, but here’s my experience:

I climbed as normally as I could between bouts of crippling nausea and exhaustion during the first trimester. I wasn’t too worried about falling. I was more worried about the waves of dizziness that sometimes happened and the occasional dry-heaving. These more than concern about the fall factor kept me mostly off the sharp end.

Toward the end of the first trimester it started feeling... different ... with my harness so I switched to the Mad Rock Mountain Mama I bought. It took a while to figure out how to adjust it properly (P.M. me for advice if you decide to use this model). I am just under 5’2“ and would not recommend this harness if you are any shorter - I was barely able to get it to fit me with most of the straps all the way tightened. I like that it is pregnancy-specific and has leg padding but it only has one gear loop which is a huge bummer. This harness comes with a little paper saying that it is only meant for top-roping so I emailed Mad Rock to ask about what might happen if, hypothetically, one were to take a fall while leading in it or catch a fall while lead belaying. The answer I got was that they “could not recommend anything but top rope climbing”. I took this to mean that the testing required to find out what effects of falling would be on a pregnant woman and her baby would be unethical and they didn’t want to get sued but that I should probably do what I wanted. In the spirit of calculated risks, I climbed almost exclusively with my husband and I didn’t lead while wearing that harness. He did, and I belayed him but we stuck to routes that were well within our ability and tried to avoid anything with major runouts.  I say tried, but it’s mostly amazing multi-pitch granite around here and that usually includes an easy but terrifying slab section. So we tried to be responsible but we were also lucky. 

On falling particularly: I did end up catching two minor lead falls during the early second trimester without a problem. I’m talking about very small, at or just above gear. Both times, he knew he was going to fall and was able to warn me and do it gently. Catching them didn’t feel any different than taking a top rope fall when you have a very dynamic rope that‘s not birthday-belay tight. However, it’s really important to have the harness adjusted properly so it doesn’t clutch your ribs and snap your butt back on the catch, very uncomfortable. Since the straps tend to loosen on their own, this means you need to be constantly checking and adjusting. 

The only time we thought there was potential for a real lead fall, we built a second, lower anchor and specifically directed it for upward pull. I belayed off of that instead of my harness. This turned out to be a smart move because he did take the fall, and it was a big one. Since the anchor wasn’t taut and I hadn’t lead belayed from an anchor before, I didn’t manage to pull slack in as quickly as usual so he took a longer fall than he would have if we’d been climbing normally. Even if he’d been belayed from my harness it would have been a big fall, but this fall resulted in an injury that shortened our climbing season. I don’t know if that injury could have been prevented with better rope management on my part. We both agreed that the anchor catch and ankle injury was much better than a potential baby injury would have been, but it felt shitty that he fell that far. My advice from this is to get familiar with belaying from an anchor. Build one at home and practice taking in slack quickly without fumbling the rope, or learning how to keep tension on the anchor so it’s less awkward to pull the slack in. Also, assess the climb and your ability. We both felt that the correct decision was made in this case. Things could have turned out better but they also could have been a lot worse. 

Around 28 weeks, I really started to feel like my balance was affected. More than that, I felt a sense of vulnerability that I haven’t experienced before. I found myself becoming a lot more intimidated by even minor swing potential or ledges while following and I was a lot less comfortable with having a little slack in the line. I just wasn’t climbing at my normal ability and I found that not knowing exactly what my ability was could be extremely unnerving. It didn’t help that it varied drastically from day to day. It was around this time that the weather was turning anyway so I never had to turn down a potential outdoor climbing day because of this. We simply chose easier routes or areas that had a good variety. 

Now I’m 34 weeks and the exhaustion has returned. We live very far to the North so there are only a few hours of daylight each day and it’s not warm or dry enough for outdoor climbing nor cold enough for ice (I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to do any of that before the baby comes). We do climb indoors on occasion but I have found that almost any effort results in major abdominal coning and I don’t really know how to prevent it. I can’t even do a dead hang from a pull up bar without coning. If you don’t know, coning is an indicator of intra-abdominal pressure, which can add to the potential of developing diastis recti. Diastis recti is when your abs separate. It happens to everyone and usually resolves on its own but in extreme cases you might need PT to correct it. I subscribe to a pregnancy workout program, which isn’t really much of a workout but has a lot of great tips on how to deal with your new balance and muscle structure. PM if you want to know more. 

I spend a lot more time lying on the couch than I expected to. I was able to keep up running throughout the second trimester but now I mostly walk and do kettle bell workouts for exercise and occasionally lifting (but much lighter than I used to).  Since I’m short and have a short torso, the baby is pushing all of my organs around and my lungs can’t fully expand so I get out of breath really quickly and easily (approaches were actually a lot harder than climbing for a lot of this pregnancy). Obviously every pregnancy is different and lots of people are fine the whole way through. I used to think it was really annoying when people would say “listen to your body” instead of giving me a real answer about something but during pregnancy, your body talks to you a lot louder and it actually starts to make sense. The times when I didn’t listen to it (like, “eh I can run another mile, I don’t need to walk this hill”) I ended up suffering the consequences and having to spend a lot more time recovering. If you do have a difficult pregnancy, my advice is not to wait until you feel like doing something, but try to notice the times when you don’t feel like you can’t do it. Then try to do it and sometimes it will feel great. If it feels terrible, just stop. 

Yeah so this got really long but in the off-chance you want to know more or just complain about how you haven’t pooped in a week and you’re haunted by the smell of your own refrigerator, feel free to send me a message. Otherwise, congratulations and good luck! I hope you get to have a very climb-ey pregnancy (Sorry but I’m assuming you are pregnant because you asked about it).

Zoe, thanks so much for sharing your story. I can already tell I’ll need to pick your brain about that harness, not sure about the work out, I am hopeless with any kind of exercise but climbing. If it’s not interesting I just can’t do it.

So far I’ve been pretty good minus an all day mild/moderate nausea( you were correct to assume). So I’m trying to climb regularly while I can.

I’ll PM you.

Sydney thanks! I’m still early weeks in my pregnancy and I loooove leading. But will mostly do top rope from now on, just to be safe. My nausea has been manageable so far and I hope it stays that way haha.

I feel like if I tell my ob I climb she’ll cancel me. I haven’t been for my first appointment yet.

I already had to swap out my harness for an old one that’s a size larger. Anything even kind of tight on my belly bothers me.

Zach, thanks, fingers crossed I’ll be the same way climbing till it’s delivery time.

Yula Movchan wrote:

Sydney thanks! I’m still early weeks in my pregnancy and I loooove leading. But will mostly do top rope from now on, just to be safe. My nausea has been manageable so far and I hope it stays that way haha.

I feel like if I tell my ob I climb she’ll cancel me. I haven’t been for my first appointment yet.

I already had to swap out my harness for an old one that’s a size larger. Anything even kind of tight on my belly bothers me.

Zach, thanks, fingers crossed I’ll be the same way climbing till it’s delivery time.

Yula,

My ob was awesome! I told him and he was like well if it doesn’t bug you then keep going just protect your joints! Hope the nausea improves! Weeks 8-10 were awful! We went on a climbing trip and eating food was pretty difficult. The fun stage of you are hungry but nothing sounds good. It gets better! Hope you are able to keep climbing for quite some time!

It's different for everyone. As a doula I would say listen to your body! I've had friends who climbed until their 36th week and I've had friends who stopped during their entire pregnancy. If you are climbing consistently pre-pregnancy your body is already used to the movement. Congrats as well! 

Thank you Sydney! Yeah I just feel like I'm trying to survive every day. Ready for it to be over so I can like food again.

First pregnancy- I climbed up to 7 months. I used a petzl full body harness. 

This time around- I stopped at around 4 months.

Just listen to your body. The day I stopped climbing during my first pregnancy I was still top roping 5.11s (gym) easily. But something just said it was time to cut back. Pretty sure it was the way the harness hugged the baby. This time it was joint laxity and joint pain.

For sure wouldn’t lead. Not worth the risk. IMO.

Everyone is different and every pregnancy is different. First go around I was dizzy and winded the whole pregnancy. This time I’ve felt great in that regard but had immobilizing joint pain... 

Due in one month and can’t wait to get back into some normal pants and climbing! Good luck with your pregnancy! 

Thank you Tia!

Hi Annie, thanks for the input. I'm feeling pretty good so far about climbing. Getting used to top rope bit by bit. Hopefully I can last a bit.

One month!! so soon! Congratulations! I hope delivery goes easy and you're back on the wall in no time. 

My wife tapered off as the pregnancy progressed. 

It's easy to get caught up in the pregnancy and all that entails. Don't forget to spend some time getting ready for life with a baby. You'll have less time, less sleep, etc. So do what you can before the baby comes to be ready. e.g. shop for a tiny harness and shoes.

haha my partner would be thrilled if those were the first things I bought for a baby. It's a lot I know but thankfully humans have 9 months to figure it all out so fingers crossed we will.

I have 2 kids.

1st one, my wife sent a 12c very early on and gradually tapered off. The full body harness was uncomfortable and she's short. She climbed a little but was just happy to get out of the house.

Fast forward exactly 2 years. Time for the second kid and she sent another 12c. (These two routes represent the two hardest routes she's done at the local crag, not an extension of normal consistency). With the second, she climbed until the regular harness didn't fit and gave up. It was just more trouble than it was worth that time.

Both cesarian. 

Within 6 weeks she was toproping easy stuff. Within 6 months, she was my rope gun again.

She stayed strong and fit but was honestly miserable most of both pregnancies. Looked like an easy time to everyone else but it wasn't.

We got through it though.

Yula Movchan wrote:

Hi girls, wanted to see if I could find some more info on what everyone's experience has been climbing during pregnancy.

How long did you climb into pregnancy? Did you lead and for how long? Did you take any falls on lead?

I hear as long as you were doing it before it's ok to continue for as long as it feels ok. 

Would love to hear about your experiences.

<3 

Climbed to the top of devils tower 5 weeks pregnant! Climbed all through the 2nd trimester with a mountain mama harness, but had to stop in the third because I couldn’t reach the wall with my belly. I’d been lead climbing for years prior to, but stopped when I got pregnant. Top rope ONLY. I would NOT recommend leading. If you take a fall, you could suffer complications such as miscarriage, tearing of the placenta away from the uterine wall or hemorrhage.

I unfortunately had a very complicated pregnancy and stopped all physical activity at 17 weeks (drs orders, I was on pelvic rest, premature delivery etc.) I support doing whatever your body tells you, but as someone who suffered a placental abruption the pregnancy harness would be worth it, and I would stop lead climbing after the 12 week mark. Top rope falls with a pregnancy harness are much much safer. I always asked myself “am I willing to risk my babies life for this fun?” I guess having a high risk pregnancy and delivery has left me jaded. Congratulations! I hope you climb all the way to the end if that’s what makes your heart happy. 

Yula Movchan wrote:

Hi girls, wanted to see if I could find some more info on what everyone's experience has been climbing during pregnancy.

How long did you climb into pregnancy? Did you lead and for how long? Did you take any falls on lead?

I hear as long as you were doing it before it's ok to continue for as long as it feels ok. 

Would love to hear about your experiences.

<3 

Not sure if this is still pertinent or not but I climbed on my babies due date and she came 2 days later! Nothing hard. I lead one pitch while Pregnant but it was 5.5/5.6 during 2nd trimester. We only had a gym first trimester as we were in Japan so no leading. We didn't climb harder than 5.9 through 2nd trimester and 5.7 early into 3rd trimester then the grades got less and less finishing with 5.6 routes in Yosemite the last few weeks of pregnancy. 

I ice climbed at the end of first trimester and could still use my regular harness but switched to a full body as it was more comfortable. 

We climbed a lot of multi pitch in 2nd trimester, cracks were VERY difficult but tried some anyways. We chose to not let me lead at this point and keep the grades easier to avoid falls and keep it fun. The goal wasnt to push myself rather enjoy what I love and stay active/strong. In doing so we were well within my husbands comfort level for climbing so he never fell while I was belaying. The full body harness I had didn't sit on my belly wierd so if I had fallen or he had fallen I wouldn't have been worried about it hurting me or baby. 

I had to navigate peeing on routes a lot more than usual like every belay. Carried more water than usual and also snacks but it was manageable. I wore a small camel pack backpack for all my things and just managed myself between pitches. As I got further along I'd get more tired so 2-3pitches at most was plenty. Listen to your body is the best advice. Whats right for one may not be right for another. 

Sarah Z wrote:

I unfortunately had a very complicated pregnancy and stopped all physical activity at 17 weeks (drs orders, I was on pelvic rest, premature delivery etc.) I support doing whatever your body tells you, but as someone who suffered a placental abruption the pregnancy harness would be worth it, and I would stop lead climbing after the 12 week mark. Top rope falls with a pregnancy harness are much much safer. I always asked myself “am I willing to risk my babies life for this fun?” I guess having a high risk pregnancy and delivery has left me jaded. Congratulations! I hope you climb all the way to the end if that’s what makes your heart happy. 

Damn. Sorry to hear it was a difficult pregnancy. I actually was told not to do any strenuous activity because of placenta previa:( so been off climbing since week 18, not as serious as placental abruption but trying to stay on a safe side. I've been only top roping since week 8 but at least I stayed fit, now it's really difficult especially with the weather getting better and all:( I bought myself a mountain mama but I found it incredibly uncomfortable, I don't know if it's an adjustment thing but didn't have much time to try since dr canceled climbing for me that same week. At week 18 I was still able to use my friends harness thats mens medium, it was much comfier, never pressed on my belly in any way. I'm going for another scan at 28 weeks to see how I'm doing and might go back to climbing if they clear me. Definitely feeling the “am I willing to risk my babies life for this fun?” so I'm only going to do easy routes. I have to stay fit somehow:) I always thought I'd be this strong pregnant lady climbing through her pregnancy but evidently I am not haha. 

Also I wonder is climbing strenuous haha? I mean I feel like walking up a hill is just as strenuous for me right now so what's the difference?qqq

It's so nice to read everyone else's responses. I'd say the biggest thing I've learned is that you're not going to really be able to control how much your body will let you climb while pregnant and that's ok. As someone who usually finds physical endeavors not that difficult I definitely felt totally blindsided by how hard pregnancy has been. I'm 29 weeks and have had daily nausea and 2-4 vomiting episodes a week for the entirety of my pregnancy (though near the end of the first trimester there were a few weeks of daily puking). The nausea set in around 5 weeks, at which point I was still lead climbing in the gym and outside in my regular harness. From 7-16 weeks I was too nauseas to do more than daily walks. I didn't boulder at all while pregnant as I prefer rope climbing and was also feeling too crappy to climb for most of the first trimester. I had decided when I found out I was pregnant that I would stop leading and bouldering after the first trimester because that's around the time when baby grows big enough to no longer be protected by your pelvic bowl. I was also shocked by how fatigued I was during the first trimester, daily naps and a 7pm bedtime if I could swing it, SO tired. I started back with a few gym and outdoor session from weeks 16-25 wearing a full body pregnancy harness. I only top-roped and would only top rope belay my partners. I was still having a lot of nausea which was exacerbated by wearing a mask for gym climbing. I found I could top-rope near my lead grade on vertical climbs but anything overhung felt really uncomfortable for my core so I avoided that type of climbing. From 26 weeks on I decided to stop climbing as I wasn't finding it fun, both because of my nausea and because everything in my body was feeling more uncomfortable. Other activities I have tried during pregnancy include running and swimming. Running is my other pre-pregnancy go to activity and I did it for a few weeks in my second trimester but then I switched back to walks because my joints hurt from the extra weight. Swimming has been my favorite pregnancy activity, the way the water supports your increased body weight has helped my body feel the closest to normal that I've been able to achieve during pregnancy. Good luck to everyone out there going through this same journey. It's going to be a different experience for each of us and whatever makes you feel good, or even just ok is what you should be doing. I definitely feel like I have just been surviving and not thriving. It's nice to know there's an end date with a hopefully happy outcome at the end of all this. I feel like pregnancy will seem like a blip when I look back on it, but it can be really hard when you're in the midst of it.