Exclusive | Women are turning to a runners hack to power through pregnancy and labor like athletes

So long, saltines and applesauce — modern moms-to-be are turning to performance products to boost energy during pregnancy and labor like athletes. “It makes total sense,” Lauren Puretz, an OB-GYN and ultrarunner in Colorado Springs, Colo., told The Post.Whether logging miles or carrying a child, the feats take fuel — and sometimes sports nutrition products are all that go down. Just ask pro runner Emma Bates, who alleges her former sponsor, the energy gel brand UCAN, dropped her after she got pregnant last year.

Joke’s on them: Products like UCAN’s were no less handy, Bates found, during her first trimester than her last marathon. “Once nausea hits, once the dizzy spells hit, you need something stat — and gels are an amazing fuel source for that,” she said on the Ali on the Run Show.“I’ve heard so many women talk about how they’ve taken gels during the birthing process, in the labor and delivery room.”Runner Paige Foote, a dietitian-turned-entrepreneur in Charlottesville, Va., was one of them.

When she learned during a childbirth class that some women appreciate a tart distraction between contractions, she realized her own sour-candy-coded energy brand, Noogs, would be the perfect addition to her go-bag for her son’s May birth. She was right.After days of prodromal labor — or contractions with pain but not much purpose — Foote was induced.

Her son wasn’t born for another day and a half.By her second of four hours of pushing, she reached for a Noog.“I would just pop a couple every now and then because at that point, I hadn’t eaten all day.

I had been on a clear liquid diet, and I knew that I needed energy,” she said.“I needed carbohydrates to help sustain me through this super strenuous activity.” Beyond adding a pep to Foote’s push, Noogs — which she’d also used while running through pregnancy — delivered a confidence boost, too. “It was cool to be like: This is the ultimate superwoman mom scenario,”...