Roo
No I am not pregnant. It is just a question I have thought for a longwhile (: (The rider pregnant not the horse)
xxxx
Answer
I rode my Arabian up until the 7th month or so of my pregnancy, by which time my clothes weren't fitting and it was getting pretty uncomfortable to ride.
I went through this issue when the same question was asked on the Horseracing section, for some reason, and one of the other answerers went through this thing about how she was a RN and I was lucky not to lose my baby, that people who loved their babies wouldn't even dream of riding while pregnant, etc., etc. Some people have really strong feelings about this issue, so you may get some really opinionated answers.
When I found out I was pregnant, I did some research into the issue, and I found out a couple of things.
First, the knee-jerk reaction of the medical profession is to tell pregnant women to stop riding. 9,999 doctors and nurses out of 10,000 will tell you: don't ride.
...But when you ask them on what basis they make that recommendation, and whether they themselves have any familiarity with the physical demands of horseback riding, you will get a deer-in-the-headlights stare, because they cannot cite any literature that indicates that women who engage in horseback riding on the flat, not including high-risk activities like racing or working with green horses, are at increased risk of miscarriage simply because of horseback riding.
I went into detailed literature search. Among other things, I looked into whether there was any data to indicate that women in nomadic societies, who would routinely have to ride some kind of animal during pregnancies, were known to have an increased incidence of miscarriage. What I found was that there is nothing in the literature that indicates that. Further, when you consider that prior to industrialization (pre-1850's), virtually all women in history were in situations where they might have to ride horses (or be driven in horse-drawn vehicles, which didn't have good shock absorption, over very bad roads, which ammounted to the same thing), you have to realize that if horseback riding caused miscarriages, there would be a lot of information about that which would have carried over in the literature and would be readily searchable. There just isn't anything like that.
Generally, people who advise women not to ride when they're pregnant cite a supposed increased risk of miscarriage brough on either by the "jolting" of the horse's motion, or increased pressure of the fetus on the cervix brought about by the position of sitting on a horse. When you look at those hypotheses, you can quickly dismiss them. As all of us who ride know, when you are a proficient rider, you are not subject to severe jolting, because the flexion of the various joints takes up the shock and when you sit to the horse's gaits, your body moves with the motion of the horse's back. You aren't bouncing around. (If your equitation is so poor that you're bouncing enough to cause significant jolting, you aren't a proficient rider.)
Further, there is nothing about the position of sitting astride a horse that subjects the cervix to extraordinary stress or forces. It just isn't true.
Those of us who grew up in the late 1960's-early 1970's, when the women's movement was just getting underway and many women were undertaking athletic activies like jogging will recognize that the same arguments against exercising while pregnant were advanced then. Women were told, in all seriousness, that if they jogged while pregnant, they were going to bounce so hard they would induce miscarriages. This myth was quickly debunked by a variety of studies.
Finally, the truth is that pregnancy is a much more robust condition than a lot of people would have you believe. One of the discussions I had was with a maternity nurse whose mother had been a nurse-midwife in London during WW II, and who had been involved in relief efforts in Europe immediately after WWII. What she told me: many women who were pregnant encountered unbelievably stressful conditons during the war, enduring bombardment in cities that were under attack, subjected to physical and emotional stresses that most of us can't even begin to imagine, had to endure hardships, privations, and engage in physical activities relating to evacuation and rescue operations. And most of these women were able to bring their pregnancies to term and give birth to normal children.
If you want to keep riding and are a proficient rider, as long as you avoid riding activities that put you at high risk of being thrown, you should be just fine. My daughter was born after an uneventful pregnancy and is now 16 and an honors student, dearly loved and the light of my life. And yes I rode for 7 months during pregnancy. And if I had to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing.
I rode my Arabian up until the 7th month or so of my pregnancy, by which time my clothes weren't fitting and it was getting pretty uncomfortable to ride.
I went through this issue when the same question was asked on the Horseracing section, for some reason, and one of the other answerers went through this thing about how she was a RN and I was lucky not to lose my baby, that people who loved their babies wouldn't even dream of riding while pregnant, etc., etc. Some people have really strong feelings about this issue, so you may get some really opinionated answers.
When I found out I was pregnant, I did some research into the issue, and I found out a couple of things.
First, the knee-jerk reaction of the medical profession is to tell pregnant women to stop riding. 9,999 doctors and nurses out of 10,000 will tell you: don't ride.
...But when you ask them on what basis they make that recommendation, and whether they themselves have any familiarity with the physical demands of horseback riding, you will get a deer-in-the-headlights stare, because they cannot cite any literature that indicates that women who engage in horseback riding on the flat, not including high-risk activities like racing or working with green horses, are at increased risk of miscarriage simply because of horseback riding.
I went into detailed literature search. Among other things, I looked into whether there was any data to indicate that women in nomadic societies, who would routinely have to ride some kind of animal during pregnancies, were known to have an increased incidence of miscarriage. What I found was that there is nothing in the literature that indicates that. Further, when you consider that prior to industrialization (pre-1850's), virtually all women in history were in situations where they might have to ride horses (or be driven in horse-drawn vehicles, which didn't have good shock absorption, over very bad roads, which ammounted to the same thing), you have to realize that if horseback riding caused miscarriages, there would be a lot of information about that which would have carried over in the literature and would be readily searchable. There just isn't anything like that.
Generally, people who advise women not to ride when they're pregnant cite a supposed increased risk of miscarriage brough on either by the "jolting" of the horse's motion, or increased pressure of the fetus on the cervix brought about by the position of sitting on a horse. When you look at those hypotheses, you can quickly dismiss them. As all of us who ride know, when you are a proficient rider, you are not subject to severe jolting, because the flexion of the various joints takes up the shock and when you sit to the horse's gaits, your body moves with the motion of the horse's back. You aren't bouncing around. (If your equitation is so poor that you're bouncing enough to cause significant jolting, you aren't a proficient rider.)
Further, there is nothing about the position of sitting astride a horse that subjects the cervix to extraordinary stress or forces. It just isn't true.
Those of us who grew up in the late 1960's-early 1970's, when the women's movement was just getting underway and many women were undertaking athletic activies like jogging will recognize that the same arguments against exercising while pregnant were advanced then. Women were told, in all seriousness, that if they jogged while pregnant, they were going to bounce so hard they would induce miscarriages. This myth was quickly debunked by a variety of studies.
Finally, the truth is that pregnancy is a much more robust condition than a lot of people would have you believe. One of the discussions I had was with a maternity nurse whose mother had been a nurse-midwife in London during WW II, and who had been involved in relief efforts in Europe immediately after WWII. What she told me: many women who were pregnant encountered unbelievably stressful conditons during the war, enduring bombardment in cities that were under attack, subjected to physical and emotional stresses that most of us can't even begin to imagine, had to endure hardships, privations, and engage in physical activities relating to evacuation and rescue operations. And most of these women were able to bring their pregnancies to term and give birth to normal children.
If you want to keep riding and are a proficient rider, as long as you avoid riding activities that put you at high risk of being thrown, you should be just fine. My daughter was born after an uneventful pregnancy and is now 16 and an honors student, dearly loved and the light of my life. And yes I rode for 7 months during pregnancy. And if I had to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing.
Whats the best way to fake a back injury so I can get a few days off of work with a doc's note?
Chrisette
No judgements....answer the question, no other comments needed its for a good cause
Answer
The most convincing way, I'm afraid, would be to do the following:
I'll just give you some points, and you can figure the rest out, easily:
The pain was sudden, and didn't seem related to any movement.. but you **WERE** standing, and reaching with that arm when it happened... but you weren't doing anything crazy...
The pain was like your entire insides - in that area seized up, like an internal charlie-horse.. no hot flashes or anything, just a jolt and PAIN following a half-second later..
You went to the floor incredibly fast, you don't even know exactly how you got there.. you didn't care much about the falling.. just that damned pain!
You were on the floor for like half an hour so, you really don't know...half-curled up like a baby...grabbing and squeezing - and holding - trying to fix the problem...
You couldn't move even the slightest bit, every little movement hurt, but you kept trying to find a position that was survivable - which you 'kinda' did... but you had to adjust every minute or so...
You kept trying to convince yourself of it just being a muscle spasm, but you couldn't find the muscle which makes/made you think it is/was more serious - like a kidney problem...
You could never seem to pin-down EXACTLY where the pain was, but you it seemed to be in the side, all the way from the spine, around parallel to the bottom of your rib.. but several inches below ( don't use those words, AT ALL, just POINT, and PINCH ( **BIG** pinches.. whole hand... )
You grabbed and squeezed ALL OVER the area... from spine to the love handles...
You are REALLY confused as to how it could be your back, it just doesn't seem right...
It must be something more serious, right?
Now, that you are at the doc., the pain has subsided a great deal, but the area feels 'warm' and achy.. kinda 'creaky' even - tight... But it still actually hurts like hell, and moving is still hindered.. you can't lay on your back comfortably... but on the opposite side, half-curled.
You are the doc now, not so much because of the pain you have now, but because of what you experienced.. you are really scared..
BTW, this experience would have really taken your energy from you, and this would be very visible on your face... you have to show that you are just wanting it all to be over, and you want to rest...
The pain, now, at the docs, seems to have some moments where it is going to happen again... You need to be able to lift things at work.. damn, didn't even think about work - heh, so much for the flat-screen this week.. f**k ( this last part.. has to be quiet, *almost* to yourself )...
That should buy you a good week or so, if you want to milk it for more. Be careful, however, don't make this a repeat.. What I have described is my episode of a severe muscle spasm in my back. It was caused, most likely, by a pinched nerve or nerve group, but can be caused just as easily from nothing more than an irritated muscle and a bad movement.
Mine was real. I won't judge...
The most convincing way, I'm afraid, would be to do the following:
I'll just give you some points, and you can figure the rest out, easily:
The pain was sudden, and didn't seem related to any movement.. but you **WERE** standing, and reaching with that arm when it happened... but you weren't doing anything crazy...
The pain was like your entire insides - in that area seized up, like an internal charlie-horse.. no hot flashes or anything, just a jolt and PAIN following a half-second later..
You went to the floor incredibly fast, you don't even know exactly how you got there.. you didn't care much about the falling.. just that damned pain!
You were on the floor for like half an hour so, you really don't know...half-curled up like a baby...grabbing and squeezing - and holding - trying to fix the problem...
You couldn't move even the slightest bit, every little movement hurt, but you kept trying to find a position that was survivable - which you 'kinda' did... but you had to adjust every minute or so...
You kept trying to convince yourself of it just being a muscle spasm, but you couldn't find the muscle which makes/made you think it is/was more serious - like a kidney problem...
You could never seem to pin-down EXACTLY where the pain was, but you it seemed to be in the side, all the way from the spine, around parallel to the bottom of your rib.. but several inches below ( don't use those words, AT ALL, just POINT, and PINCH ( **BIG** pinches.. whole hand... )
You grabbed and squeezed ALL OVER the area... from spine to the love handles...
You are REALLY confused as to how it could be your back, it just doesn't seem right...
It must be something more serious, right?
Now, that you are at the doc., the pain has subsided a great deal, but the area feels 'warm' and achy.. kinda 'creaky' even - tight... But it still actually hurts like hell, and moving is still hindered.. you can't lay on your back comfortably... but on the opposite side, half-curled.
You are the doc now, not so much because of the pain you have now, but because of what you experienced.. you are really scared..
BTW, this experience would have really taken your energy from you, and this would be very visible on your face... you have to show that you are just wanting it all to be over, and you want to rest...
The pain, now, at the docs, seems to have some moments where it is going to happen again... You need to be able to lift things at work.. damn, didn't even think about work - heh, so much for the flat-screen this week.. f**k ( this last part.. has to be quiet, *almost* to yourself )...
That should buy you a good week or so, if you want to milk it for more. Be careful, however, don't make this a repeat.. What I have described is my episode of a severe muscle spasm in my back. It was caused, most likely, by a pinched nerve or nerve group, but can be caused just as easily from nothing more than an irritated muscle and a bad movement.
Mine was real. I won't judge...
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Title Post: Could you ride a horse while pregnant?
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Author: Unknown
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Rating: 95% based on 95 ratings. 4.8 user reviews.
Author: Unknown
Thanks To Visiting My Blog
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