Exercise and it's impact on labour?

I was just reading a report on exercise and labour and it said that women who maintained a high level of fitness (ie. runners and dancers, etc.) during their pregnancy, went into labour an average of 5 days earlier, had a much shorter labour, and fewer complications than women who had been fit and stopped exercising during pregnancy.
So that got me thinking - does anyone have a real life experience of being a "sort of fit" person? ;) I've been doing a prenatal exercise video every week day for the past 8 weeks or so, and intend to keep it up as long as I can. It's been WONDERFUL for my aches, pains, and energy level! Highly recommend it to anyone! It's 40 min of warm-up, cardio, pilates, and stretching. What impact is this *likely* to have on my labour? I've never done any real regular exercise through any of my other pregnancies before, and I already go pretty quickly. Except for my first, it's been 1.5 to 2 hours of labour or so from 4cm to birth. This is baby number 5.
I know there's no guarantee of anything, and labour can be unpredictable, but can anyone share their experience, of going from no exercise to regular exercise and it's impact on their labour?
Thanks! :)

My experience is a bit different to what you are asking.

With my first pregnancy I was still doing weight lifting and cardio training, I was at the gym four days a week and yogo one night a week. I was lifting weights (under the eye of a PT) until the Thursday before I delivered on the following Monday and the night I went into labour I had just finished a yoga session when I went into labour :lol: I trained "down" as such with my weights and cardio, wore a HR monitor to ensure my HR didn't get too high the further I got into my pregnancy. I would have classed myself as being pretty fit, quite a bit of muscle and defined abs :o.

My labour was very quick, from waters breaking to first ctx was 45 minutes we got to the hosptial another 45 minutes later ctx had gone form 5m to 2 1/2-3min appart within that 45 min and I was 7-8cm on for my first assessment not long after arrival and DD was her less than 40min later, natrual delivery but I had two tears and then an episiotomy was performed. DD was 7 weeks early.

This pregnancy I am not allowed to do any exercise due to complications, my general activities are very limited, no lifting, no long walks, no yoga... nothing :( So I will be interested to see what happens this time....

The difference is that I was already fit and training before getting pregnant, generally it is not advisable to suddenly start a full fitness regieme when getting pregnant, you can certainly take up more exercise, but say going into starting weights or full on training isn't recommended. But the things you are doing sound good and I am sure it will be beneficial in some ways, but as to the effect it will have on your delivery I can't answer as I was training before hand and trained down in pregnancy.

Goodluck and hopefully it makes a difference for you, I ams ure that being a bit fitter will help your recovery xxoo

Thanks Beema!

Sounds like you did go pretty quickly with your first! Must be frustrating to not be allowed to do much this time around. :( But if it results in a healthy bean, then it's all worth it, of course. :hug:

I'm also hoping that I'll recover well afterwords. I've got a post-natal DVD to go with this one too. Hope I can get the motivation to do it when the time comes! It's a funny thing - I know that the exercise makes me feel SO much better, and yet every day, I have to make myself do it.