I've coached 100+ women through prenatal-safe strength training — all word of mouth, zero ad spend. Here's what keeps coming up:

1. Stopping everything in the first trimester out of fear.

Most strength training is safe in trimester 1 if intensity and exercise selection are managed. Fear-based stopping causes more harm (deconditioning, mood, birth prep) than training does.

2. Ignoring intra-abdominal pressure management.

Breath-holding and poor bracing under load is the #1 cause of diastasis recti and pelvic floor issues — not "lifting weights" itself. The exercise doesn't matter as much as HOW you're pressurizing your core.

3. Copying a non-pregnant program and just "lifting lighter."

Pregnancy changes your center of gravity, joint laxity (hello relaxin), and recovery capacity trimester by trimester. A program built for a non-pregnant body, even at lower weight, isn't automatically safe.

The protocol I run is built entirely around these 3 fixes — trimester-specific modifications, breath/bracing coaching, and weekly programming adjustments. If you're pregnant and still want to train hard (safely), it's worth doing right.