Under cover mothers are on the right track

Senior features writer

Thursday 19 July 2012

When most mothers-to-be choose a buggy, they don't look on it as a piece of exercise equipment.

PUSHING THEMSELVES: The Buggy Buddies group warms up in Braehead Shopping Centre before heading to a nearby park for lunges, squats, press-ups then jogging back.

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health & wellbeing how i … use my buggy to exercise rebecca Mcquillan Picture: Stewart Attwood

However, for a group of women who congregate every Friday morning at Braehead Shopping Centre, near Glasgow, the buggy is integral to their exercise regime.

Buggy Buddies is an exercise class incorporating baby and buggy aimed at mums with children aged up to two. In that sense, it's not unique, but what makes Buggy Buddies different is that it starts and ends in a shopping centre, out of the wind and rain. The phalanx of women having a warm-up march down the main hall so briskly, they look like they're racing each other to a shoe sale.

Weather permitting, the women then head to Clydeview Park, where they make use of benches and other equipment to do a series of lunges, press-ups and dips, before jogging back to the centre.The class allows young mothers to get some exercise without booking a babysitter, but it is also carefully designed to be appropriate for women who have recently given birth, as it is easy for new mums to overdo it accidentally. Irene McDonald from Active Communities Renfrewshire leads the group. She says: "We explain to women they don't have to do anything extreme to regain their pre-pregnancy shape." Some women might think that sit-ups are a good idea to trim down the tummy, the muscles of which are pushed apart during pregnancy, but McDonald advises against it. "They are no good. They don't encourage the tummy muscles to reconnect again: doing sit-ups is actually forcing them apart."It's important you don't go back to running too soon afterwards because the knees and hips can be too flexible. There's a hormone called relaxin that helps the joints and pelvis move during childbirth. You can dislocate your hips if you exercise too vigorously too soon."That's not to say the exercise isn't rigorous, though.Braehead's marketing manager Lydia Brown says: "It can be quite an impressive sight seeing all these new mums marching off through the centre pushing buggies."Vanessa Ewing, 31, mother to five-month-old Oscar, who works for Strathclyde Police Authority, was still running up until 34 weeks into her pregnancy and was "desperate" to get back into exercise. "At the first Buggy Buddies class, Oscar was six weeks," she says. "I thought I would have a stroll and get a coffee at the end, but it was actually quite hard. She had us doing squats and going up hills."As for the children, they tend to sleep, at least while the buggies are moving.Afterwards, the group gets together over complimentary tea and coffee provided by Braehead, where they share information about other activities and tips on things like getting babies to sleep. Gill Mackay, 36, started doing the class with her son Innes, who is two, and now does it with her 15-week-old daughter Sofia. She loves it. "Most things I do are about the baby," she says. "This gives the mums a bit of a chance for a social time"To find out more, contact Susan McDonald on 0141 880 9095 or 0141 880 9096.

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Under cover mothers are on the right track

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