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Following my intense runs and lifts, I sometimes experience sore and jelly-like muscles, a ravenous appetite, and the inability to do anything but lie horizontal. This state also happens to describe the hours (and days, really) after I gave birthโbut on a way more intense scale.
So it maybe shouldnโt be a huge surprise that one woman appears to have treated her recent labor like a workoutโat least digitally. On X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), userย @paularambles posted โthinking about this woman who recorded this as a workout on Stravaโ above a screenshot of a Strava user who recorded the five and a half hours she spent โgiving birth.โ The user expended 914 calories during with an average heart rate of 81 beats per minute. She even got two whole โkudosโ (Stravaโs version of a โlikeโ).
Well+Good was not able to verify the accuracy of the screenshot, because the Strava userโs identity was blacked out for privacy. But the idea of tracking childbirth as a workout has captured the internetโs attention: The post has over eight thousand retweets and 5.7 million views, with people alternately marveling at or shaking their heads over quantifying the โcalorie burnโ of labor, and loling at the kudos. Even the official Strava account weighed in, quote tweeting the post with the Strava-ism โIf itโs not on Strava, it never happened.โ
If itโs not on Strava, it never happened ๐ถ https://t.co/P1fz1mds4U
โ Strava (@Strava) April 22, 2024
Itโs easy to see where the criticism implied in the original tweet and many of the replies could come in. Is a consequence of never taking off our fitness trackers the feeling that we must quantify everything in terms of the calories we burn, even the most intimate occasions of our lives? Are we really concerned about capturing the exertion of a major life event so we still get โcreditโ for the physical effort? Your water breaking is no reason to miss a workout, missy!
โIf itโs not on Strava, it never happenedโ is a somewhat self-deprecating in-joke for running and cycling devotees. But the saying could also reflect a tendency to overshare for the sake of external validation, and an inability to experience something for its own sake without a digital record.
On the other hand, cataloging childbirth as a โworkoutโ also gives us a framework to understand, in some way, the wholly mind-boggling physical experience of growing a human and giving birth. My OB said multiple times before, during, and after my labor that I had just done the equivalent of running a marathon.
It turns out this not quite one-to-one comparison comes thanks to a National Institutes of Healthโfunded study published in theย American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology1. Researchers found that running a marathon and recovering from childbirth can take a similar toll on a personโs body in terms of the injuries sustained, and thatโdespite the conventionally accepted six week recovery timeโchildbirth can result in more extreme injuries that require longer recovery times than those sustained in a marathon.
Another study published in Medical Hypotheses2 found that the brain has a similar response in processing the memories and pain of both events, indicating that at leastย our brainsย make a connection between intense exercise and labor. Finally, a 2019 study published inย Science Advances3ย found that pregnant and breastfeeding people push their bodies past the levels of extreme endurance athletes, in terms of energy expended over a long period of time.
A 2019 study found that pregnant and breastfeeding people push their bodies past the levels of extreme endurance athletes.
If only society at large recognized this effort! Unfortunately, in the United States,ย that is not the case: the U.S. isย one of only seven countries in the worldย that do not offer paid maternity leave.
In this dismissive climate, using technology to see and display what our bodies are going through can not only be fascinating, it can also be validating. When my contractions started, my husband and I watched in fascination as the objective strength of the contraction (as measured by sensors over and inside my body) reflected the subjective agony I was enduring.
โFinally, thereโs something to corroborate my suffering!โ I joked in the throes of labor, referring to the reality thatย womenโs pain is often underplayed and ignoredย by medical professionals.
So, yeah, maybe don’t judge a woman who just gave birth on the way she chose to commemorate it? And besides, why shouldnโt someone proudly share the achievement of pushing a new life out of them as measured in the hours spent literally laboring, the hard work of their heart and their muscles, and the massive amounts of energy expended? Give new moms some credit! And if that has to be in the form of a โkudos,โ so be it.
Well+Good articles reference scientific, reliable, recent, robust studies to back up the information we share. You can trust us along your wellness journey.
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Miller, Janis M., et al. โEvaluating maternal recovery from Labor and delivery: Bone and Levator Ani Injuries.โ American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, vol. 213, no. 2, Aug. 2015, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2015.05.001. -
Farley, Dominika et al. โWhy is running a marathon like giving birth? The possible role of oxytocin in the underestimation of the memory of pain induced by labor and intense exercise.โย Medical hypothesesย vol. 128 (2019): 86-90. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2019.05.003 -
Caitlin Thurberย et al.,Extreme events reveal an alimentary limit on sustained maximal human energy expenditure.Sci.Adv.5,eaaw0341(2019).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aaw0341
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