did your cardiovascular fitness improve after pregnancy?:

andylllI

One of my friends told me a story about a certain country encouraging the members of its woman's field hockey team have a baby because the adaptations improved cardiovascular performance. I thought this was bunk and was under the impression that all the physiologic adaptations of pregnancy basically reversed themselves 6-8 weeks postpartum.

I noticed after my first that my ability to keep up with my husband on runs had improved. And I got even better after my second. So i did a little investigating and found this: (Warning: about to geek out)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002914997007388

Turns out that pregnancy causes lasting changes that increase your left ventricular end diastolic volume and hence your stroke volume and cardiac output and that these adaptations persist for at least a year post partum AND that a second pregnancy adds a bit more benefit.

I tried to find a similar study where they compared women during and after pregnancy to the never pregnant or...what would be more interesting, women who adopted vs those who were pregnant since I was wondering if the condition persists simply because you might be chasing/ lifting/ carrying more than before you had kids which might qualify as LISS.

Then a read a bit about some endurance records set by women in the first year post-partum which was awesome. So have any of my fellow MFP ladies noticed this after pregnancy too?