Staying healthy during pregnancy is especially important so it is advised to keep doing light exercises and take short walks. This keeps the body healthy and wades off different problems related to the body. Exercises like crab walking, squats, and forward lunges help strengthen the thighs. Similarly, a duck walk is a great way to improve flexibility and prepare the pregnant woman for normal delivery.
As indicative of the name, duck walk during pregnancy is an exercise where the pregnant woman imitates the walk of a duck. It involves the mechanism of squats, lunges, and crab walking. This tends to create a balance and helps to reduce the lower back pain that is commonly experienced during pregnancy. A great choice as it even helps to strengthen the thigh muscles and helps with better hip movement that eventually helps to reduce the pain women experience at the time of delivery.
Video of Is It Safe To Do Duck Walking During Pregnancy?
What is Duck Walk?
Duck walk, as the name indicates is a form of Kegel exercise that helps to tighten the pelvic muscles. It combines the technique of flexing the hip in a squat position to open the cervix opening. It puts pressure from the upper torso onto the cervix while sitting in a squat position.
Is Duck Walk Safe During Pregnancy?
Doing a duck walk or full squat tends to put full pressure on the knees. This can is harmful for the knees so it is not advisable in the first trimester of pregnancy.
However, any type of Kegel exercise helps in strengthening you for normal delivery (1). Doing duck walks, forward lunges, squats, or reverse lunges helps to strengthen the thighs as well as buttocks. These areas often lack focus so doing duck walk during the third trimester of pregnancy helps to firm the muscles in this area.
When Should You Consider Duck Walk During Pregnancy?
Since a duck walk puts considerable pressure on the knees, it is advisable to practice it in the last months of pregnancy. This enables the strengthening of the glutes and even helps to get contractions closer which helps in the progress of the labor (2).
Doing this regularly is helpful, but it is important to listen to the body as during pregnancy, energy levels differ. Always consult a doctor before starting it and discuss the duration as well.
Top 9 Benefits of Duck Walk During Pregnancy
Practicing duck walk helps in exerting pressure on the body parts that are not touched. Duck walk is done to focus on those body parts that help with flexibility as well as mobility. It is also important to strengthen the core with the correct posture. Duck walking if done properly can yield excellent benefits in no time.
1. Enhanced Body Stamina
While doing the duck walk, the entire weight of the body is on the leg. Doing this exercise makes the leg muscles immensely powerful which helps with the delivery time. It even leads to generating strong muscles at the ankles. It even enhances the oxygen supply when doing this exercise resulting in an energized body which is important during pregnancy.
2. Simple and Easy to Perform
There are few restrictions for a pregnant woman, except that, this exercise needs no special requirements. Duck walking is easy to perform and can be practiced anywhere. One needs only one proper fitting shoe and needs no special place. There is no fear of tripping as well. A pregnant lady can practice it anywhere, outdoors, indoors, and at any time of the day. It needs no special equipment but should be done under vigilance during pregnancy.
3. Improve Core Strength
Duck walking during pregnancy helps to boost overall health and improves core strength. It helps to reduce lower back aches which is common in pregnancy. This involves core exercise which ensures better abdominal strength, posture, and better breathing patterns. It reduces abdominal pressure which is common in pregnancy.
4. Enhances Fitness
During pregnancy, the belly grows, and all the pressure is on the calves or thighs. Duck walking helps to balance the body and ensures that not much pressure is exerted on any one of the legs. It helps to build the muscles in this area reduces the pressure and helps to bear the labor pain (3).
5. Better Balance and Coordination
Duck walking not only helps to build the core but improves the balance of the body. This exercise also offers strength to the legs. This also keeps you energetic and due to better coordination and balance, speed, and agility improve as well.
6. Minimizes Labour Pain
Doing duck walks during pregnancy helps to improve the strength of the perineal and thigh muscles and minimizes labor pain.
7. Helps With Flexibility
The duck walk ensures the strengthening of glutes that help in squatting. This helps in preventing injuries and tearing of muscles whose chances are maximum during delivery.
8. Helps With the Progress of the Labor
This is of use in the second phase of labor when one needs closer contractions to progress further to the delivery stage. If duck walk is practiced it even allows the baby’s head to descend making labor easier and smoother in the month.
9. Helps to Control the Blood Sugar Levels
Being less physically active means burning fewer calories and high levels of blood sugar. Duck walking, however, increases the heart rate thereby reducing the blood flow which is important during pregnancy (4).
Precautions to Take While Duck Walking During Pregnancy
The duck walk is an ideal way to stay healthy as well as fit. It increases leg strength and improves balance, coordination, and endurance, and is good for the mother and the fetus as well (5). There are, however, a few precautions that must be taken when doing the duck walk.
They are listed under:-
- It is important to go slow since it is a combination of squats, lunges, etc.
- One should not rush into walking as it can harm the baby.
- It is important to be careful with posture and follow the steps at a slow pace.
- It is important to warm up as well as cool down before and after performing the exercise.
- Since duck walk focuses on lower body muscles, warming up helps in preventing any sort of injuries.
- It is important to keep a shoulder-width position as it helps in aligning the body well.
- It prevents any injuries to the knees or ankles and is important to keep the posture intact.
Thus, the duck walk exercise is a modified way of doing squats and an ideal workout for pregnant women that helps to strengthen the glute muscles. It helps in the smooth descent of the baby’s head and helps with normal delivery (6).
FAQ’s
1. Why Do Doctors Ask You to Duck Walk During Pregnancy?
Doctors advise duck walking because it is good for boosting stamina. It even helps to stay active and reduces the chances of getting scar tissue in the calf muscles.
2. Does Duck Walk Help to Induce Labor?
No studies show any relation between duck walking and inducing labor but as per medical experts, exercising moderately for half an hour four to five times a week helps the woman stay strong during labor. Not just that, duck walks also help in smooth labor avoiding unwanted tears.
[Read Also: Can Squats Help To Induce Labor?]
References
- Watkins VY, O’Donnell CM, Perez M, Zhao P, England S, Carter EB, Kelly JC, Frolova A, Raghuraman N. The impact of physical activity during pregnancy on labor and delivery. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2021 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10564562/#:
- Cilar Budler L, Budler M. Physical activity during pregnancy: a systematic review for the assessment of current evidence with future recommendations. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2022 Jul – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9288689/#
- Santos-Rocha R, Fernandes de Carvalho M, Prior de Freitas J, Wegrzyk J, Szumilewicz A. Active Pregnancy: A Physical Exercise Program Promoting Fitness and Health during Pregnancy-Development and Validation of a Complex Intervention. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9028999/#
- Onaade O, Maples JM, Rand B, Fortner KB, Zite NB, Ehrlich SF. Physical activity for blood glucose control in gestational diabetes mellitus: rationale and recommendations for translational behavioral interventions. Clin Diabetes Endocrinol. 2021 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8074463/#
- Moyer C, Reoyo OR, May L. The Influence of Prenatal Exercise on Offspring Health: A Review. Clin Med Insights Womens Health. 2016 Oct – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5075987/#
- NASM, Squats For Pregnant Women – https://blog.nasm.org/squats-for-pregnant-women#
