Jumping during pregnancy is generally not recommended. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advises pregnant women to avoid jerky, bouncy, or high-impact motions because of the increased risk of injury. That said, the risks vary depending on the type of jumping, how far along you are, and your fitness level before pregnancy.
Why Jumping Becomes Riskier During Pregnancy
Several changes in your body during pregnancy make high-impact movements less safe than they’d normally be. Understanding these shifts helps explain why jumping gets singled out as an activity to avoid.
The hormone relaxin, which your body produces throughout pregnancy, loosens the ligaments that hold your joints together. This is necessary because the ligaments around your pelvis need to stretch to make room for your growing baby. But relaxin doesn’t target just the pelvis. It affects joints throughout your entire body, making ankles, knees, and hips less stable. Landing from a jump puts sudden force on these loosened joints, raising the chance of a sprain or other injury.
Your center of gravity also shifts forward as your belly grows. Combined with decreased abdominal muscle strength and changes in spinal curvature, this shift makes it harder to balance. The risk of falling increases, and landing from a jump requires exactly the kind of quick postural adjustment that becomes more difficult as pregnancy progresses.
The Pressure Problem: Pelvic Floor Stress
Jumping generates more internal abdominal pressure than almost any other common exercise. In one study measuring pressure across a range of activities, jumping produced the highest average reading at about 76% of maximum capacity, far exceeding walking, cycling, or even lifting heavy weights. That pressure pushes down on your pelvic floor, the group of muscles that supports your bladder, uterus, and bowel.
During pregnancy, your pelvic floor is already under extra strain from the weight of your growing baby. Adding repeated high-impact landings on top of that load can contribute to stress urinary incontinence (leaking urine when you cough, sneeze, or land from a jump). For some women, this becomes a persistent issue that extends well beyond delivery. Protecting pelvic floor function is one of the strongest practical reasons to choose low-impact alternatives.
Placental Abruption and Heavy Exertion
Placental abruption, where the placenta separates from the uterine wall before delivery, is rare but serious. A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that the risk of abruption was 7.8 times higher in the hour following moderate or heavy physical exertion compared to periods of rest or light activity. For heavy exertion specifically, that number jumped to 13.7 times higher.
This doesn’t mean that a few jumps will cause an abruption. The absolute risk remains low, and the study looked at episodes of significant physical strain, not casual movement. But it does suggest that intense plyometric workouts (box jumps, burpees, jump squats) carry a real, if small, elevated risk that gentler exercise does not.
How Risk Changes by Trimester
The first trimester is when the fewest physical changes have occurred. Your center of gravity hasn’t shifted much, your joints haven’t loosened significantly, and your belly isn’t affecting balance. If you were regularly doing high-impact exercise before pregnancy, many providers consider light jumping during these early weeks to be relatively low risk, though it’s still worth discussing with your care team.
Around 14 weeks, the transition away from high-impact activity becomes more important. Health systems like Luminis Health recommend avoiding activities that increase your risk of falling starting in the second trimester, and suggest continuing only with low-impact exercise from that point forward. By the third trimester, when balance challenges peak and pelvic floor strain is greatest, jumping of any kind is widely discouraged. The best-suited activities at that stage are swimming, walking, and stationary cycling.
Low-Impact Alternatives That Deliver Similar Benefits
If you’re drawn to jumping because you want a solid cardiovascular workout, several options give you that without the impact forces. Walking at a brisk pace is the most accessible: if you’re new to exercise, starting with 10 to 15 minutes a day and building to 30 minutes, three to five times a week, is a well-supported approach. Swimming is particularly effective because the water supports your joints and body weight while still challenging your heart and lungs.
- Brisk walking provides moderate aerobic conditioning with zero impact on joints or pelvic floor.
- Swimming or water aerobics supports your weight, reduces joint stress, and allows for higher-intensity cardio.
- Stationary cycling (especially a recumbent bike) keeps impact to a minimum while maintaining leg strength.
- Prenatal strength training with moderate weights helps maintain muscle tone and prepares your body for labor, as long as you avoid heavy loads.
Warning Signs to Stop Exercising
Regardless of the type of exercise you choose, certain symptoms mean you should stop immediately. These include vaginal bleeding, fluid leaking from the vagina, dizziness, chest pain, headache before you’ve started exerting yourself, muscle weakness, calf pain or swelling, contractions that feel like preterm labor, and any noticeable decrease in your baby’s movement. These warning signs apply to all exercise during pregnancy, not just high-impact activities.