Leo Gillick
At 38 weeks pregnant, a woman attempted a viral TikTok running challenge to induce labor, and ended up in the hospital for all the wrong reasons.
Videos by Rare
It’s not usually medically advisable to get into high-intensity exercise while heavily pregnant, but since when have TikTok trends ever been sensible? Nicole Atkins had seen a viral challenge on the social media platform and thought she would give it a try.
The concept is simple. People had been saying that sprinting while pregnant was one way to induce labour. At 38 weeks, Atkins was getting desperate, and so she wanted to give it a go.
Speaking to People, she said, “I saw the TikTok trend of sprinting to induce labor, and I saw how slow everyone runs. Like they think they’re running fast and look back at it and see how slow they are, so I thought it’d just be funny to see how slow I was running.”
So, the camera rolling, she started her pregnant viral TikTok sprint. She was barely a few strides into the challenge before wiping out, eliciting gasps of fear from the bystanders.
Pregnant Legs Not Up To The Running Challenge
It might seem like she was taking an unnecessary risk, running while 38 weeks pregnant for a challenge, but she didn’t think so. As she told People, she had been active all the way through her pregnancy. But sprinting was a whole new ballgame.
@iconicole.mom I do not advise 😅 I didn’t trip, but pregnancy is wild and for whatever reason my legs decided to give out and became jello. Mind you I’ve been active all pregnancy! Baby is okay and still hasn’t made his entrance yet. . . . . #38weekspregnant #inducinglabor #sprinting #pregnanttok #pregnancy ♬ original sound – Nicole
“I was going to start running, and then my legs just kind of went numb, and I fell,” she recalled. “When I fell, it’s kind of like I blacked out a little bit. I was kind of in shock, and I needed a second to figure out what was happening, and afterwards I got really, really shaky.”
Immediately, she rushed to the doctors. Of course, the fear was that, when so heavily pregnant, the running challenge may have harmed the baby. “I went to the doctor to make sure everything was okay,” she said. “They monitored me for a while, he was perfectly healthy, I was healthy, and there were no issues.”
All was well with mother and baby. But let it be a lesson. There are other ways to induce labor. I hear eating incredibly spicy food is a possible way to get it going.
