Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

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Annelizabeth
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby Annelizabeth » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:21 pm

You know sometimes we forget how woman in parts of the world where they do not view a birth as a medical procedure often have to walk that far to even have the ability to give birth with a trained attendant.

I agree giving birth is easy vs a recovery from a road marathon.

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby jes » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:53 pm

Annelizabeth wrote:
I agree giving birth is easy vs a recovery from a road marathon.


Exact opposite experience for me. Marathon WAY easier than labour!

Even at a 6.5hr pace, I'm impressed...I could barely walk to the mailbox at that point in my pregnancy :lol:
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby fstreet » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:55 pm

Annelizabeth wrote:You know sometimes we forget how woman in parts of the world where they do not view a birth as a medical procedure often have to walk that far to even have the ability to give birth with a trained attendant.



When I saw this in the news I had a few thoughts:

1) I thought this was a case for whitewhine.com - a collection of first world problems collected daily.

2) Then I thought about Katharine Switzer on stage in Victoria on Saturday. She was talking about how women like her weren't expected to run the Boston Marathon because their uteruses might fall out [to paraphrase]. I wonder what she would think of this? Better yet, I wonder what she would think of the media coverage?

3) To put #1 and #2 into context - I buy into the argument that running was an important part of our evolutionary history and pregnant women would be expected to keep up to the rest of the group/tribe/whatever as they migrated/ran down game/took flight from other groups of people.

4) This woman is awesome.

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby mas_runner » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:56 pm

So technically the baby is a bandit and likely beat mom (belly crossed like before her chip)...
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby HCcD » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:58 pm

mas_runner wrote:So technically the baby is a bandit and likely beat mom (belly crossed like before her chip)...


That, and technically, should have been DQ'd for outside assistance ... :shifty: :wink: :oops:
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby DougG » Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:50 pm

=))
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby dgrant » Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:55 pm

39 weeks pregnant...Finishing the race in 6 hours and 25 minutes

In other news, everyone who finished in 6 hours and 26 minutes have now hung themselves.

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby CAW » Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:05 pm

=))
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby mcshame » Tue Oct 11, 2011 5:21 am

DougG wrote:Ok I admit to not having any knowledge of pregnancy :oops: :roll: , but my initial instinct is to call the woman an idiot for risking her health and more important, the baby's. Something does not sit right with me on this one. :-t


I heard this waking up this morning and I was cursing like a sailor. She is not my hero, priorities are all messed up.

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby purdy65 » Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:36 am

I dunno,

With all the medical on the course, it might actually be a safe place for her to be!

Not that it would be my choice however
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby Pat29 » Tue Oct 11, 2011 8:01 am

It's not for everyone but at least she did receive medical clearance before taking part in the marathon and both the mother and baby are healthy and doing well now.
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby HCcD » Tue Oct 11, 2011 8:14 am

fyi ... Just posted by Canadian Running Magazine on FB ... http://runningmagazine.ca/2011/10/sections/news/pregnant-woman-finishes-marathon-gives-birth/

Pregnant woman finishes marathon, gives birth
October 11, 2011

Many women compare running a marathon to giving birth, but doing both on the same day? That’s what one woman did in Chicago on Sunday.

Amber Miller, 27, ran in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday, then gave birth to a baby girl just hours later. Miller told ABC news she had signed up to run the race before she found out she was pregnant, and decided to go ahead with the run. With just one week to go until her due date, however, she figured she wasn’t going to finish the race.

“I was having a conversation with my parents and said, ‘You know what? I have no plans of actually finishing,’” she told reporters yesterday. “I was planning on running half, skipping to the end, then walking across the finish line.”

Instead, she started running the race in her husband. The pair ran the first half, but slowed to a walk during the second half as her contractions started. She finished the race in 6.5 hours, grabbed some food and headed straight to the hospital. Baby June was born at 10:29 p.m.

Is it safe to run a marathon while pregnant? While it’s certainly not normal (and most medical experts don’t recommend starting a new training regime or taking up running if you weren’t previously a runner), many mothers have been known to run well into their pregnancies. Paula Radcliffe, women’s world record holder for the marathon, trained during both of her pregnancies.

Dr. Jacques Moritz, director of gynecology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, told
ABC news that pregnant women can do moderate exercise as long as she can still hold a conversation. He said Miller, whom he has not treated, seemed to be in good cardiovascular health, was young and fit and ran throughout her pregnancy.
Miller told reporters herself that she is usually a 3:30 marathoner who has completed eight marathons. She has run three of those while pregnant, including one when she was 17 weeks pregnant with June and another when she was pregnant with June’s older brother Caleb.


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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby fstreet » Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:45 am

mcshame wrote:
DougG wrote:Ok I admit to not having any knowledge of pregnancy :oops: :roll: , but my initial instinct is to call the woman an idiot for risking her health and more important, the baby's. Something does not sit right with me on this one. :-t


I heard this waking up this morning and I was cursing like a sailor. She is not my hero, priorities are all messed up.



Just think, she could have been doing something truly dangerous like driving around in traffic.

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby trixiee » Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:24 pm

fstreet wrote:
Annelizabeth wrote:You know sometimes we forget how woman in parts of the world where they do not view a birth as a medical procedure often have to walk that far to even have the ability to give birth with a trained attendant.



When I saw this in the news I had a few thoughts:

1) I thought this was a case for whitewhine.com - a collection of first world problems collected daily.

2) Then I thought about Katharine Switzer on stage in Victoria on Saturday. She was talking about how women like her weren't expected to run the Boston Marathon because their uteruses might fall out [to paraphrase]. I wonder what she would think of this? Better yet, I wonder what she would think of the media coverage?

3) To put #1 and #2 into context - I buy into the argument that running was an important part of our evolutionary history and pregnant women would be expected to keep up to the rest of the group/tribe/whatever as they migrated/ran down game/took flight from other groups of people.

4) This woman is awesome.


Agree!
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby HCcD » Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:30 pm

fstreet wrote:
mcshame wrote:
DougG wrote:Ok I admit to not having any knowledge of pregnancy :oops: :roll: , but my initial instinct is to call the woman an idiot for risking her health and more important, the baby's. Something does not sit right with me on this one. :-t


I heard this waking up this morning and I was cursing like a sailor. She is not my hero, priorities are all messed up.



Just think, she could have been doing something truly dangerous like driving around in traffic.


Unfortunately, a 30 year old-something female comuter cyclist was killed this morning, after being run over by a car, while either avoiding someone opening their car door, or being pushed into traffic from getting hit by an car door opening in rush hour downtown Ottawa ... :shock: :? :( :( :(
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby Spirit Unleashed » Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:35 pm

HCcD wrote:
fstreet wrote:
mcshame wrote:
DougG wrote:Ok I admit to not having any knowledge of pregnancy :oops: :roll: , but my initial instinct is to call the woman an idiot for risking her health and more important, the baby's. Something does not sit right with me on this one. :-t


I heard this waking up this morning and I was cursing like a sailor. She is not my hero, priorities are all messed up.



Just think, she could have been doing something truly dangerous like driving around in traffic.


Unfortunately, a 30 year old-something female comuter cyclist was killed this morning, after being run over by a car, while either avoiding someone opening their car door, or being pushed into traffic from getting hit by an car door opening in rush hour downtown Ottawa ... :shock: :? :( :( :(

Thats ok as long as she wasn't pregnant.
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby canalrunner » Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:40 pm

mcshame wrote:
DougG wrote:Ok I admit to not having any knowledge of pregnancy :oops: :roll: , but my initial instinct is to call the woman an idiot for risking her health and more important, the baby's. Something does not sit right with me on this one. :-t


I heard this waking up this morning and I was cursing like a sailor. She is not my hero, priorities are all messed up.


+1

Not sure awesome is the word that comes to my mind first. Glad the baby is fine, and the mother got the story she wanted and not the story she could have had.
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby PinkLady » Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:25 pm

I don't know, I'm torn...Been thinking about this one for a few days before responding. On the one hand, as a woman with kids I do think society can get pretty judgemental and just plain nosey when it comes to a pregnant lady. Too political and complicated to discuss here, but there's nothing that quite invites unwelcome opinion, comments, and other people in your private business than having a baby bump. So part of me says good for her for going for it, and she clearly was a very experienced runner and did get her doctor's approval. (Though goodness me, I know of NO doctor in my personal experience who would ever okay such a thing, if only for fear of liability! :shock: ) Part of me admires her fitness.....at that point in my pregnancies I could barely waddle up the stairs, and I usually needed to stop to catch my breath halfway! :lol:

The other part of me thinks it's crazyland to knowingly put your body at such high stress so late in the pregnancy, when you don't *have* to (ie. trekking to the midwives in a remote village in the undeveloped world). Sure you're much likelier to get in a car accident, statistically, but one can't avoid driving/riding in a car in today's world. So that seems to be comparing apples to oranges, really. Yes, baby is probably finished 'cooking', but overstressing and more importantly overheating mom's body does put baby at risk, and so does anything that might affect baby's oxygen supply. Plus, I also wanted to point out if she was 39 weeks, she was *barely* term. I know it's a common belief that pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. It doesn't - full term is considered 42 weeks. The misconception comes from 10 month gestation, which is more than 40 weeks.

Walking and light activity is suggested as a way of inducing labor, btw. But they mean a stroll around the block - not walk/running a marathon!

Anyways, I guess I'm ending up with a feeling of 'not what I would do, but it's not my body or baby, and not my place to judge'. I agree that she's really quite lucky that baby turned out okay, or she would've been roasted in the press (fairly or not).
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby jes » Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:50 pm

PinkLady wrote:
Anyways, I guess I'm ending up with a feeling of 'not what I would do, but it's not my body or baby, and not my place to judge'. I agree that she's really quite lucky that baby turned out okay, or she would've been roasted in the press (fairly or not).


Well said. There's a lot of judging going on here. Not your place. It was her place (along with her dr's) to make that call.
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby mcshame » Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:41 pm

jes wrote:
PinkLady wrote:
Anyways, I guess I'm ending up with a feeling of 'not what I would do, but it's not my body or baby, and not my place to judge'. I agree that she's really quite lucky that baby turned out okay, or she would've been roasted in the press (fairly or not).


Well said. There's a lot of judging going on here. Not your place. It was her place (along with her dr's) to make that call.


She can make any call she likes with her body and her child with her husband and deal with the outcome. However, as I am human, I can form an opinion of this news item I heard this morning and now reading about it on the net. At 39 weeks of pregnancy, she is about to bring into the world a beautiful child. For the life of me, I cannot understand why someone would be thinking of running a marathon at that time. Doing something against the grain? Proving to one's self that I can do anything? Is it Ego? I don't believe it is about the baby. Someone had mentioned that at 39 weeks, the baby is all formed. But there are so many things that can still go wrong. Agreed that they could go wrong just as a matter of due course, but you would be pushing fate a bit. Why?

“I was having a conversation with my parents and said, ‘You know what? I have no plans of actually finishing,’” she told reporters yesterday. “I was planning on running half, skipping to the end, then walking across the finish line.”

Instead, she started running the race in her husband. The pair ran the first half, but slowed to a walk during the second half as her contractions started. She finished the race in 6.5 hours, grabbed some food and headed straight to the hospital.

Contractions on the course, but kept going. Smart? Brave? Gusty? Ego, at the time her baby was coming....wow...

Don't misunderstand, I think it's great to be physically active during a pregnancy and running. But, as people have pointed out to me in the past, you don't need to train or run a marathon to maintain good fitness.

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Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby Jwolf » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:17 pm

I couldn't agree with you more Lorne. I'd vote for you. :)

I also would be pretty annoyed to hear if she (or anyone else) shorted the course on purpose and still went across the finish line. As you said I'm not sure what she was thinking.
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby PinkLady » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:18 pm

mcshame wrote:Instead, she started running the race in her husband. The pair ran the first half, but slowed to a walk during the second half as her contractions started. She finished the race in 6.5 hours, grabbed some food and headed straight to the hospital.

Contractions on the course, but kept going. Smart? Brave? Gusty? Ego, at the time her baby was coming....wow...


Okay, I didn't know this tidbit until now. :shock: If this is true, then it definitely changes my opinion. The original article said that she had the baby 6 hours after finishing the race, I kind of assumed the contractions started later that evening.

If she started to have contractions in the middle of the race - that should have been it, her race should have been done. Finishing it after contractions started was foolhardy. And it was her husband's responsibility as much as hers (didn't know that she was with hubby) to stop her from continuing, it's his baby too!

Wow......I'm thinking back to my youngest, where I went from minor contractions to crowning in less than 2 hours. In her place, my kid would've definitely been borne on the course!
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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby mcshame » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:31 pm

PinkLady wrote:Wow......I'm thinking back to my youngest, where I went from minor contractions to crowning in less than 2 hours. In her place, my kid would've definitely been borne on the course!


Our 1st, forceps, our 2nd, DON'T PUSH, the doctor not here yet!!, pop, she's out. Our 3rd on the way down, was all tangled up in his umbilical code, around his neck, they got him out quick with lots of snipping of cords and blood and gray looking. Every birth is different and filled with it's own surprises

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby Joe Dwarf » Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:03 pm

jes wrote:There's a lot of judging going on here. Not your place. It was her place (along with her dr's) to make that call.
Sure it's her place. And it's within my rights to call her and her doctor idiots. Just because you have a medical degree doesn't mean you don't suffer from cranial-anal insertion.

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Re: Woman gives birth after finishing Chicago Marathon

Postby canalrunner » Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:09 pm

Joe Dwarf wrote:
jes wrote:There's a lot of judging going on here. Not your place. It was her place (along with her dr's) to make that call.
Sure it's her place. And it's within my rights to call her and her doctor idiots. Just because you have a medical degree doesn't mean you don't suffer from cranial-anal insertion.


+1

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