Is Paintball Safe During Pregnancy? Learn The Truth Here!

One of the most common questions asked by a lot of people “is paintball safe during pregnancy?” Even though many women enjoy playing paintball the only time we don’t recommend playing is during pregnancy.

Paintball is definitely not safe to play while pregnant. A lot of things can happen while playing such as falling, strikes to the belly, and overheating, you would pose a serious risk hurting your unborn child.

We all know that being pregnant is by far one of the most exciting time in your life and we all want what’s best for your baby. There are many different ways in which you can enjoy yourself while being pregnant. But there several reasons why paintball is not one of them.

Why You Shouldn’t Play Paintball While Pregnant

There are many reasons why you shouldn’t play paintball while you’re pregnant. Even if you feel you’ll be very careful and safe there are lots of risk that can cause serious consequences.

1. Taking a paintball in the stomach
2. Tripping and falling
3. Collisions
4. Overheating
5. Broken bone or strain ligaments

1. Taking a paintball in the stomach

One thing we all know for sure is that taking a paintball really hurts and it usually leaves a mark. Let’s be clear, in the first trimester, your fetus is known to be protected by your pelvic bone. However, once the fetus moves higher there is a greater risk of injury. Your baby is at risk and can potentially be harmed by a direct hit of the paintball.

2. Tripping and falling

This tends to happen quite often because paintball doesn’t take place on smooth and clear land. There are usually rocks, mount and tree roots all over the area to run over. While on the battlefield, you can’t stay in one position especially when you’re carrying extra weight.

Redistribution of body weight can cause problems with your sense of balance. This often leads to an increase in falls. We both know that at any stage during a pregnancy, a fall is extremely dangerous. A fall on the abdomen could cause severe injury to the placenta. Damage to the placenta has a lot of potentially tragic consequences which includes premature delivery, stillbirth, abnormal fetal development, and fetal growth restriction.

This is why you should know that falling during the late second trimester and early third trimester can be detrimental to both you and your baby.

Falling to the ground very often is apart of playing the sport. Everybody falls at some point during the game especially when it’s very intense. So what we recommend doing is to avoid the game and don’t play while you’re pregnant.

3. Collisions

Even though paintball is not a sport where people contact a lot, it still does happen quite often. You should remember that everyone is constantly running around looking for the next player to shoot. You may not be watching who’s running towards you from behind and you definitely don’t want to take any hit while being pregnant.

4. Overheating

When pregnant your core body temperature is a lot higher than normal. The reason for this is because your body is using more energy to carry your baby. This also increases your chance of getting overheated while on the playing field. With that said, your body uses more energy when it tries to cool down. Here are some of the symptoms you may experience: nausea, weakness, and cramps.

Another thing is that you can also develop severe organ damage if your body overheats too much. According to the American Pregnancy Association, your unborn child will be at high risk for birth defects if your body temperature is too high during the first trimester. Also during pregnancy if your body temperature is too high, your chance of having a miscarriage is higher than normal.

This is why we don’t think it’s wise to play paintball while pregnant. You will be moving around constantly, bending and jumping and all of these activities is capable of raising your temperature. That put you and your baby at a higher risk of having complications.

5. Broken bones or strain ligaments

One of the main concerns while being pregnant and playing paintball is ligaments and bone injury. This usually happens due to the increased laxity of the joints. During an intense battle there are sudden stops and turns. This will for sure put pressure on these already stressed ligaments.

What You Should Do If You Decide to Play Paintball

So you’ve read all our warnings and still decide to go out there on the battlefield. While we recommend doing it, if you’re still going to do it, you should definitely take some precautions. Here are a few tips that will help you stay safe.

1. The first thing you should do is drink plenty of water
2. Take the time out to pad your belly as much as you can. As mentioned above, getting shot with paintball is very paintball and you should do everything in your power to protect your baby
3. You should definitely choose a field that has less obstacles. Try your best to find one that’s smooth, so you don’t fall
4. If you get hot when moving around, you should stop playing. Sit down down somewhere that’s cool and let your body cool down

Here Are Some Other Sports That Pregnant Women Should Avoid

Let’s be clear here, paintball isn’t the only sport that you should avoid playing if you’re pregnant. One of the best thing you can do is avoid playing any type of sport where there is a possibility of you falling. Some of these sports include:

• Gymnastics
• Rock climbing
• Surfing
• Road cycling
• Tennis
• Horse riding
• Waterskiing
• Volleyball
• Bowling

Even though we have listed road cycling, we do recommend exercising on a stationary bike. If you plan to cycle, you will need to consult your doctor so that you have an idea on how much cycling is acceptable for you, with your particular pregnancy.

Contact or Collision Sports

Another thing is that you should also stay away from any type of contact or collision sports that may put you and your unborn child at risk of injury, falls and shots to the stomach area. Some of these sports include:

• Kickboxing
• Squash
• Hockey
• Football
• Racquetball
• Judo

Some other sports that you should avoid is scuba diving which isn’t safe to do while you’re pregnant. By doing this it will increase your risk of miscarriage or having a baby with birth defects.

Also, you should stay far away from mountain climbing since while doing this the oxygen levels tend to change putting you and your baby at risk for altitude sickness. So you definitely want to avoid the rocky mountains especially if you’re new to them.

If you ever decide to visit any amusement parks, you can tick waterslides and just about every other ride off the list. Slides normally have a huge impact when landing and rides usually have sudden speeding up or slowing down which could harm your baby.

Types of Exercise You Can Do

The safest and most effective exercises you can do are:

• Step machine
• Indoor stationary cycling
• Brisk walking
• Swimming
• Low impact aerobics
• Elliptical machine

Base on research, these are low-risk, low-impact exercises that you can take part in upon till birth. You can also do some sort of jogging but we only recommend it if you were doing it before you got pregnant. You want to only focus on exercises that don’t require a lot of balance or coordination. The closer you get to delivering the worst your balance will get.

What Should be Included in a Pregnancy Exercise Program?

A program should definitely help in strengthening and condition your muscles. It should include:

• 10 minutes stretching
• 10 minutes warm-up
• 20 minutes of cardiovascular activity
• 10-20 minutes of gradually slower exercise

You should also take the time out to measure your heart rate at peak times of activity.

Here Are a Few Pregnancy Changes That May Affect Your Exercise Routine

All of the physical changes that you’re currently going through will for sure create extra demands on your body. Take the time out to listen to your body and adjust your activities according to its needs. Here are some of the changes that’s taking place:

• The first thing is that your body will certainly require more oxygen and energy
• The extra weight and uneven distribution of your weight will move the center of gravity
• Lots of hormones produce can cause the ligaments that support your joint to stretch. This will certainly increase the risk of injury
• The extra weight also helps to put pressure on joints and muscles in the lower back and pelvic area. This will cause higher chances of losing balance.

Signs That You’re Exercising Too Much

You should definitely stop exercising and consult your health care provider if you:

• Have massive headaches
• Feel cold or clammy
• Feel weird chest pain
• Notice a decrease or absence in fetal movement
• Experience vaginal bleeding
• Feel faint, dizzy nauseous or lightheaded
• Experience short of breath
• Have muscle weakness
• Unable to walk properly
• Notice an irregular heartbeat
• Have sudden swelling in your hands, ankles, or face pain

Conclusion

There you go, we have listed everything you need to know about playing paintball while being pregnant. We don’t recommend going on the battlefield if you’re pregnant because the chances of having an injury is extremely high. With that said, we have listed a few exercises you can do to keep yourself occupied.