We won’t sugarcoat it: pregnancy can get boring. You’ll be spending nine long months on a carefully-managed diet, waiting for your water to break. A little bit of restlessness is completely understandable – chucking some axes might seem like the best way to get it out of your system.
It might seem crazy, but we promise it’s a ton of fun! But can you throw axes while pregnant?
Axe throwing is a nice way to blow off steam, but it’s also a strenuous, high-impact physical activity that involves lifting and throwing heavy objects. Workouts may be fine, though steer clear of activities like this which put your body under notable strain.
Pregnancy also alters your weight, hormones, and even body proportions over time. These minute changes can alter your balance and coordination, increasing the risk of accidents or property damage. The strain may even lead to pre-term labor for some mothers!
While you can go axe throwing while pregnant, that’s only on a technicality – the same way food that’s “safe to eat” won’t always be healthy. Axe throwing is still a risky activity that can go wrong in a number of ways, so it’s best that you put it off until your pregnancy wraps up.
What Makes Throwing Axes While Pregnant so Risky?
Physical Strain
During pregnancy, the physical toll of axe throwing can harm your body. Even if you discount potential accidents, you’d still be seriously exerting yourself. This can be mitigated by prior exercise and conditioning, but pregnant women will still have their options severely limited.
Pregnancy also causes other changes in your body, altering one’s weight, metabolism, hormone production, and even body proportions. This in turn affects a mother’s balance and coordination, which makes axe throwing even riskier for pregnant women.
Your body’s conditioning will inhibit your ability to participate in this activity, which makes it less safe not only for you and your child but other bystanders in the vicinity. It’d be much too easy for the axe to slip out of your hands, causing potential property damage and even injury.
You might think you’re tough enough to handle axe throwing or simple tasks like mowing the lawn or cleaning the fish tank while pregnant, but remember that you’re responsible for your child. It’s not a matter of you being capable, but the activity being safe.
Most axe-throwing events also have people sign legal waivers before permitting them to participate – some won’t even allow pregnant women to join altogether. Even if the axe range allows you to participate, we’d still advise against throwing axes while pregnant. Any number of things could go wrong – and only one thing needs to go wrong to utterly derail your pregnancy.
Accidents
Above: Safety Precautions on Axe Throwing
Throwing axes is fun and usually quite safe, but this is mostly because of the many precautions organizers take beforehand. A fumbled throw – or even a ricochet – will injure on impact, and is certain to break fragile property.
Here’s a brief breakdown of one such organizer’s safety precautions.
One serious takeaway in that list is that this professional venue explicitly bans pregnant women from throwing axes past the 20-week mark. The 20-week mark is usually the point where pregnant women often begin to suffer from back pain, exhaustion, and inhibited body coordination.
This isn’t just a matter of avoiding liability with pregnant women. Their ruleset also bans people who suffer from vertigo, cardiovascular health issues, and limb impairment. Axe throwing as a sport may seem reckless at a glance, but the organizers take safety there very seriously.
Final Thoughts
Pregnant women shouldn’t throw axes – while it’s only explicitly banned past the 20-week mark, axe throwing may put your pregnancy at risk due to a lot of other factors.
While most of these can be mitigated with the right precautions, it’d be much safer, in the long run, to remove those concerns altogether. You don’t need to throw axes to kill time while pregnant, so maybe save it for after your pregnancy to celebrate!
