Do you do hot yoga? When to give up?

funkykey · February 2017

Early on, when we were TTC, I watched what I drank after I ovulated and regularly took prenatal vitamins, etc.

As I lost hope, I stopped caring. I stopped taking the prenatals and had wine with dinner. I went to hot yoga classes regularly. (I love it so much.)

Now that we're doing treatments, my hope is coming back. I'm taking the prenatals again, I'm drinking less.

This is more an informal poll than anything else - after you ovulate, do you stop drinking? Do you stop doing things like hot yoga?

I know the studies have shown that a little bit of alcohol before a BFP is NBD - a lot of women who aren't TTC drink before they know they're pregnant, after all. And part of me thinks there's so much stress with being IF - all these treatments and everything why would I worry about more than I absolutely have to? (Ie. lunch meat, oysters, hot yoga, soft cheese -- all the stuff I know I'm going to worry about if/when I actually am pregnant)

ps. if I get a BFN this weekend, I'm booking a visit to a spa with a wine list and hot tub.

laurad75 · February 2017

@funkykey I wouldn't over think it. If you are used to hot yoga and it doesn't make you uncomfortable you should keep doing it since you find it relaxing. I would maybe recommend you wear a heart rate monitor just in case and avoid inversion poses or any intense twisting. I also fully support your spa trip.

mountainlady · February 2017

Oh these questions have been plaguing me! I love all the bad things!

For my first few months of TTC I didn't worry about any of it. From around cycle 4 to 14 I was disciplined... I only had decaf coffee and only a few times a week. I limited myself to one glass of wine from CD1 to ovulation, then no alcohol. I avoided hot-tubs and hot environments. I avoided cold foods. No adrenaline. Blah blah blah.

Then around cycle 14 I gave up a bit... I now have a couple of glasses of wine in an evening if I feel like it (not every night!) and a couple of regular coffees a week. I do all the activities I feel like doing - although I still try to limit adrenaline activities.

DH trys to tell me to just do what relaxes me the most - if it makes me happier, surely it can't be a bad thing?

Doctors have all seemed to agree that nothing in moderation will harm our chances either. But google and the internet disagree.

A niggling part of me things I'm sabotaging my chances.

limeburst · February 2017

I don't stop drinking after I ovulate but I do try to drink a little less. The first few months I was trying not to drink at all, but I gave up on that idea. I like wine too much

Just curious, I have never done hot yoga (although I have always wanted to try it), what is the reason for not doing hot yoga will during the TWW or PG? I thought that most workouts, even high intensity, were pretty safe during the first trimester especially if you had been doing them before getting KU. I run, so now I am wondering if working out during the TWW is unsafe?

kaitlink33 · February 2017

@antoto might have some insights on the hot yoga. Good luck moving forward with everything.

[Deleted User] · February 2017

Thanks for the tag @kaitlink33

I'm an RYT 200 hr yoga teacher. I see zero reason to stop doing hot yoga while ttc. I've been going through IUIs and am preparing to go through IVF and don't plan on stopping. Although I don't teach hot, I do teach very sweaty, intense classes. As always, just make sure your ego isn't driving your practice and if you really do need to sit and drink some water do it. Listen to your body and what it needs. If you have snotty students/teachers give you the stink eye just ignore it. Do what feels good. If it stops feeling good don't do it.

For when you do get KU then... well... it's personal. I personally would stop hot classes at that point, but would continue with unheated Vinyasa classes. And just continue following your own pace in the most humble way. Honor that hot bod!

I can't really speak on a professional level about alcohol.. but I'm only gonna put down my wine glass when I get that BFP.

FX for you

Please feel free to PM me with more specific yoga questions any time.

funkykey · February 2017

@MountainLady - me too, I love all those things. But I don't think we're sabotaging our chances. Now that it looks like there's a bigger chance we might get KU-ed though, I keep wondering if I should get back on the bandwagon, OR if I should just not worry about any of it until I actually have a BFP I can see... My paranoia/overthinking impulses are setting in... Hello anxiety!

@antoto - thanks for weighing in! I'm so flattered - a real hot yoga teacher! Haha!

@Kim41313 - it's the same logic as hot tubs. It's not the workout so much as the risk of neural tube defects associated with maternal hyperthermia, apparently. I hadn't even thought of it, and then in the room we did our IUI, there was a bulletin board with a clipping like: "Pregnant woman and hot yoga: the risks". Yikes! It was like: "we encourage yoga, just not in really hot rooms." So bikram is out, but working out is in (just not in a sauna).

And then my mind started running, like: "how soon do neural tubes form?" Though I've heard that a lot of pregnant women, even if they're not thinking about NTD, they find the classes too hot anyway.

mountainlady · February 2017

@funkykey seriously thank you for asking this question. I'm not the only TTTC lady who thinks a glass of wine is OK!

@antoto do you have any intel/opinion on inversions? It never even occurred to me to consider them a negative.

[Deleted User] · February 2017

@MountainLady Yes I do! So it depends on what your inversion game is like before you get KU. If your game is super, super strong before you're KU then I think it's perfectly fine to continue. If you are a beginner or you're inconsistent and shaky, then I would discontinue the inversions until after you give birth. I think for pregnancy in general it's fine to continue with the things you already do, but it's just not a time to start something new, especially if it involves the potential of falling. This lady is my good friend and she did her full practice all through her pregnancy (tw - pregnant lady) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4187422/Yoga-devotee-practised-day-giving-birth.html

To be clear - Randi is an extremely experienced yoga instructor. (tw - baby - she had her son and her labor was very short, easy, and baby boy is healthy as can be).

Be warned - there are some yoga teachers out there that believe a woman should not do inversions at all during pregnancy OR even your period because the "energetic flow" will reverse up to your head when it "should" be going downward. This is nonsense. We also have "downward energy" when we are digesting food (which is most of the time) but you never see a male yoga instructor be all like "Well I ate some hummus a few hours ago so I'll avoid this headstand". Just remember that even though yoga is considered female centered now, it has it's roots in a very sexist history where women were not even allowed to practice it. So if a teacher ever says that bullshit to you (male or female) just bye felicia them. I'm a teacher and I do inversions all the time when I'm on AF. My energy is just fine, thanks.

PoeMasque · February 2017

There is no blood flow to baby until at least 7 weeks, so zero risk of anything you ingest making its way to baby. Research actually shows it's what MEN ingest up to two months prior to conception that can impact baby.....but I've never seen or heard of anyone suggesting men abstain.

I will say it again - women on meth get pregnant just fine, your struggle is not due to hot yoga or a glass of wine. No matter how many idiots tell you a certain position, herb, food, lifestyle, etc will make it happen, the fact is that none of those things will change your reproductive process.

funkykey · February 2017

@PoeMasque - I think that double-standard is part of what makes me so confused. There's so much misinformation targeted to women (and none to men!), it's hard to tell what's evidence-based and what's not. I never, ever thought I'd be the kind of woman who worried about eating oysters or soft cheeses while pregnant, and here I am - and I don't even have a BFP! This process has been so confidence-destroying.

Maybe because we've been trying to do this for so long now, I want to do everything right for the baby that we don't have. A few glasses of wine before I know if I'm KU-ed, no big deal. But what about heating your body? As in: if I do get KU-ed, safe to go hang out in hot tub at 4/5 weeks along? What about 3 weeks along? (What if I play hooky from work and go to the spa today, is what I mean. Hahaha.)

Logically I know, if we MC, it's not going to be because I went into a hot tub - my fertility and whether or not the embryo is viable has nothing to do with my spa trip. But should we be so lucky as to successfully deliver, if our baby did have a NTD, I would hate myself.

That said, I actively hate all those articles that tell women not to paint their nails or to eat only organic or to avoid coffee. I think: "where is the science?!", or "enough misogyny - misinformation to control women" (I'm radical like that

). I feel strongly it's irresponsible to publish that kind of information if it hasn't stood up to peer review.

hoffmanr7 · February 2017

I find I tend to go in cycles with this. When we first started TTC, I gave up alcohol and soda completely. That lasted probably about 4-5 months and then I missed wine too much. I normally take a break from drinking after I ovulate, but not always. If I had a really crappy day, then I'm having a glass of wine and a hot bath. Currently, I am off of alcohol and soda completely again for this IUI cycle. I know I don't need to be, but I find it makes me feel a little bit better, like I'm doing everything I can to increase our chances (even though I know it really probably wouldn't make that much of a difference).

I'm not really missing the wine so much this time around...but it's early in the cycle yet, lol. And I don't miss soda at all, but that's because DH and I have switched to Zevia which is super yummy and, as we have found, a really great, healthier alternative.

As for the yoga, I have always wanted to try hot yoga! They don't offer much around where I live. I have found one yoga studio, and their classes are mostly times when I can't make it. But I love yoga...before I moved in with my husband, I used to take a weekly class.

mountainlady · February 2017

@antoto excellent - I had always intended to continue once I was pregnant... just got to get there first!

I definitely have some nostalgia for the pregnant lady I thought I was going to be: I was going to eat soft cheese, be adventurous and carry on aerials as much as I felt like. Probably not anymore though!

limeburst · February 2017

@funkykey I never thought about it, but that makes sense!

@antoto thanks for the info!!

@PoeMasque I agree 100%!! If women on drugs can get pregnant and deliver healthy babies then I am not going to feel bad about having a glass of wine during the TWW.

notamyrtle · February 2017

@PoeMasque It is a breath of fresh air to hear such an emphatic statement.

Like the rest of you, I've also gone back and forth (and back again) on these lifestyle issues. On the one hand, part of me DOES want all this lifestyle stuff to matter - what foods you eat or don't eat, how much alcohol and hot-tubbing, what exercise you do or don't do and how much. Because that would mean maybe we did have a little bit of control over this situation. I've made some decent changes but have yet to see the impact of them. I do have the occasional alcohol in the TWW, even in these IUI cycles. Once the years start to pass, it becomes harder to justify the masochistic stuff, like avoiding all alcohol.

Do you do hot yoga? When to give up?

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