Shooting while pregnant?

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My wife and I are expecting our first in Sept [smile]. I had bought her a P238 for christmas and she has shot it once and loved it. Now that she is pregnant, we are trying to figure out if it is safe for her and the baby. The ob/gyn had no idea because she has never been asked before; The only concern she had was the noise level. Have any of you had your wives shooting while pregnant? Or been told not to(by a medical professional not your mother's sister's friend that used to be married to a nurse)?
 
This has been discussed here many times.

The answer is nobody knows for sure if the lead exposure and noise would hurt the baby. So my advice is hit the range when a need a break from changing diapers.

ETA: And congrats!
 
One of my friends was advised against it by her doc due to lead concerns.
 
IMO, just shoot outside where you don't need to worry about good air filtration, or properly maintained filtration system. Maybe you'll be lucky and the shooting your wife does will make the kid a crack-shot. [smile]
 
For the noise concern, I'd probably avoid it by 3rd trimester since babies can definitely hear in the womb and react to its parents voices. Don't want a lot of really loud noises going off when it could damage the ears.
 
I would refrain from shooting at an indoor range, no matter how good the ventilation system is. I'd have mild concerns about lead residue and would shower immediately after shooting and wash the clothing ASAP. Other than that, Have fun. From a noise standpoint probably stop just before the 3rd trimester.
 
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When my wife was pregnant she didn't shoot and I was careful to make sure my hands were clean when I came back from the range can't be to careful
 
Copy-pasted from another thread about this:

Regarding the sound issue, the transition from air to the body (which, for simplification, we'll call "fat") actually reflects a significant amount of sound.

The formula for transmission of soundwaves from one medium to another is:
T= 1- ((Z2-Z1)/(Z2+Z1))^2
Where Z2 is the acoustic impedance of the medium the sound is trying to enter, and Z1 is the impedance where it's coming from. The impedances are defined as the speed of sound in the medium multiplied by their density.
The acoustic impedance for air at 20 degrees celsius is ~413.3 Nsm^-3 and for fat it's around 1.3 million Nsm^-3 (much much higher).
Plugging these into the equation gives: T= ~0.0013. Meaning 0.13% of the sound gets transmitted into the body and 99.87% is reflected.

This is a reduction of approximately a factor of 770, which equals approximately 29dB. For comparison, a good set of hearing protection is around 30 dB noise reduction rating (NRR).

This doesn't even factor in the absorption of the sound waves by the tissue itself, just the reflection from the transition from air to body.

Whether this means the sound is safe for the baby or not is not something I will speculate on, but I wanted to correct some of the misinformation that has been posted about how the sound will be transmitted to the womb. The sound will be significantly less intense when it reaches the baby's ears, not more.
 
Copy-pasted from another thread about this:

Regarding the sound issue, the transition from air to the body (which, for simplification, we'll call "fat") actually reflects a significant amount of sound.

The formula for transmission of soundwaves from one medium to another is:
T= 1- ((Z2-Z1)/(Z2+Z1))^2
Where Z2 is the acoustic impedance of the medium the sound is trying to enter, and Z1 is the impedance where it's coming from. The impedances are defined as the speed of sound in the medium multiplied by their density.
The acoustic impedance for air at 20 degrees celsius is ~413.3 Nsm^-3 and for fat it's around 1.3 million Nsm^-3 (much much higher).
Plugging these into the equation gives: T= ~0.0013. Meaning 0.13% of the sound gets transmitted into the body and 99.87% is reflected.

This is a reduction of approximately a factor of 770, which equals approximately 29dB. For comparison, a good set of hearing protection is around 30 dB noise reduction rating (NRR).

This doesn't even factor in the absorption of the sound waves by the tissue itself, just the reflection from the transition from air to body.

Whether this means the sound is safe for the baby or not is not something I will speculate on, but I wanted to correct some of the misinformation that has been posted about how the sound will be transmitted to the womb. The sound will be significantly less intense when it reaches the baby's ears, not more.

What Egon means is: No idea.

I'd say don't. Seriously, it's a growing human and it doesn't need loud gunfire to disturb it. Just my two cents.
 
Doctors say you can't do anything. I don't ask my damn doctor anything. They also tell you it's ok to pump newborns with 25 shots all at once, or that the flu shot doesn't make you sick. I use common sense.

Shoot outside, not inside. You'll be fine.
 
I'm voting against shooting while pregnancy. But the choice is not yourself or herself, but both soon to be parent. For baby sake, there are many other hobby, relaxation or stress relieve methods.

Sent from my Tinfoil hat
 
Outdoors with a lever action 22 using CCI CB shorts & a speed loader that DAD fills
 
I'm in the 'why take the chance' camp. When my wife was pregnant, I made sure to wash up right after I got back from the range, and I washed my shootin' clothes separately from our other clothes. I even bought some of the D Lead soap and detergent.

Congrats, by the way.[smile]
 
Don't do it. Too many risks with the lead, gun smoke, recoil etc. wait till the baby comes and then take turns at the range.

Even then, change your clothes, leave your range boots outside so you don't track in lead powder and wash your hands really well before handling the baby. Better safe than sorry.
 
Not a doctor but my impression of pregnancy is this...

Until the auditory system is developed, shooting should be fine.

After development begins, no bueno. The womb is a liquid sound chamber.

If you shoot, I would use subsonic rounds outside or something. Airguns might be nice to plink with for a while.

Babies are very sensitive to what they hear/feel going on outside the womb and what happens can greatly affect them after birth. There is a book called "Job's Body" that talks about many of those quirks from am eastern and western medicine perspective.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
This has been discussed ad nauseam on here and these threads generally devolve into butthurt central, so I'm going to zap this one.
 
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