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"You stupid pieces of @#!%, I was in the army too, and I didn't forget four years of training the moment my egg's perimeter was breached! You think just because I can't see my feet right now that I can't put one of them up your cowardly ninja asses?"
Kazumi Kato, The Order of the Stick

In Real Life, pregnancy is just a natural part of the cycle of life. Mothers often manage to work until they go into labor and resume normal activity a few days after giving birth. However, it is also damned inconvenient, with possible drawbacks including tenderness of various body parts, nausea and vomiting, painful strain on joints and ligaments, burping and farting loudly, and skin irritation. A pregnant body must endure some awkward changes in size, shape and weight as it stretches to accommodate a growing fetus. Undue stress can sometimes provoke a miscarriage. Particularly troublesome pregnancies can even be incapacitating.

In fiction, pregnancy will more likely tend toward dramatic extremes. Either it is a debilitating condition that takes former Action Girls out of commission for the duration — rendering them physically and emotionally fragile or even bedridden — or exactly the opposite. Whether it's due to surging hormones or newfound parental instincts, pregnancy can cause someone to Take a Level in Badass — sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently in preparation for becoming a Mama Bear or Action Mom, or in the case of a man, Papa Wolf or Action Dad.

Sometimes allies or others close to the mother object to this, even when they otherwise respect her Action Girl prowess and do not think Women Are Delicate: they worry she is at a disadvantage, or that extreme stress could endanger her or the baby. Sometimes the mother agrees, which makes the character even more formidable — she only fights when no other option is left, with the raw fury of a Cornered Rattlesnake.

In milder danger, a pregnant character proves herself a Badass Bystander or competent Action Survivor. In extreme circumstances, this badass runs into a major battle nine months pregnant, goes into labor while fighting, harnesses the pain of a Screaming Birth to become a Screaming Warrior, retires just long enough to deliver the baby, then picks up a weapon with one hand and returns to the fray while cradling the newborn in the other. In situations where magic is involved, the unborn child can Power-Up its mother in some way, lending support in what is usually a terrible strain on their mind or soul.

Compare and contrast Imperiled in Pregnancy and Pregnant Hostage: the character may reveal a Hidden Badass nature in response to such peril and make any foe regret underestimating them. And they may not be alone in the fight: the parents might be a Battle Couple, and maybe they are expecting the newest member of the Badass Family.

Note that in order to qualify for this trope, the pregnancy should have some noticeable physical effect on the badass, whether the general malaise of the early stages or the Temporary Bulk Change that happens later. If they are huge and heavy but still manage to move with grace and swiftness, compare Acrofatic. If they are significantly hindered, compare Handicapped Badass.


Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • A rare male example is Yuuji from Animal X, who takes on a Tyrannosaurus rex with a chainsaw, takes out four men with a fire extinguisher, and breaks out of a secure medical facility, liberating at gunpoint the repressed vaccine for a deadly man-made virus, all the while pregnant.
  • Blue Gender: Marlene is pregnant with Yuji's child during the last two episodes. She was only in the first few weeks, so it in no way affected her status as an Action Girl.
  • A Certain Magical Index has Freyja, a girl with powers based on her namesake, the Norse Goddess of Fertility. Despite being heavily pregnant, she can do feats like sprinting and then jumping onto a moving train, and puts up a hell of a fight against Touma. However, it turns out that the girl is an innocent and her unborn baby is controlling her like a puppet to protect her mother, making for a very strange inversion of Mama Bear.
  • Played straight then cruelly subverted in Berserk as Guts got Action Girl Casca pregnant when they made love for the first time (there’s no contraceptive in medieval times) so doing the math concludes that Casca was carrying for 43 chapters or a few weeks in In-Universe, in that time she was kicking plenty of ass and only felt ill towards the end of the Golden Age. The horrific and tragic subversion is that due to being raped by Griffith, Casca’s child was mutated in her womb by his demon seed thus Casca miscarried the baby and it become a Fetus Terrible that followed its parents around like a shadow.
  • Viletta Nu from Code Geass avoided capture when Lelouch takes over the world with Cornelia's rebellious group while pregnant with hers and Ohgi's kid. Yeah, she was on the early stages, but she did have a notorious baby bump by the time Zero Requiem had its climax — and right then she was seen with a gun in her hands alongside Cornelia and Guilford.
  • Videl is a downplayed example in Dragon Ball Super. Although she doesn't do any fighting, she does talk down an angry god of destruction, then becomes the first and only known full-blooded human to turn Super-Saiyan by channeling her unborn daughter's power.
  • Eureka doesn't let being six months pregnant stop her from kicking ass in Eureka Seven Ao.
  • The Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War manga adaptation by Mitsuki Oosawa has several cases of this:
    • As a part of her Adaptational Badass makeover of sorts, Deirdre takes the trope. The infamous "let's bring King Clement down to normal with a Silence staff so his Mackily castle can be taken without spilling any blood" gig happened when she was in the first stages of her pregnancy with Seliph.
    • There is also Ira and Adean giving birth during the Silessa arc. Adean only has her eldest son Lester (with Jamke, in this continuity), while Ira has twins (Ulster and Larcei, with Lex). The same arc also has Ethlyn pregnant with her second child Leif, but she doesn't give birth until few later.
    • Similarly, another chapter reveals that few months after this Princess Raquesis is pregnant with her eldest son Delmud (Finn's child, in this particular media).
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run: When Funny Valentine and his lackeys realize that Lucy Steel has become pregnant with the Head of the Holy Corpse through virginal conception, they attempt to keep her prisoner until it can be 'born'. Unfortunately they forgot that Corpse Parts grant Stands to anyone they choose as hosts, and Lucy uses her new Stand Ticket to Ride (which allows her to turn her tears into blades that create a nexus of intensifying bad luck wherever they touch human flesh) to kill Valentine's two main henchmen and finally manage to save herself without help from any other Stand user. Well, almost. Valentine recaptures her near the dock, and his mere presence causes the Saint's Corpse to start consuming her energy to reforge itself.
  • Magi: Labyrinth of Magic has an example of this with Sheba as she goes into the final battle for Alma Torran pregnant with Aladdin.
  • Monster: The mother of the Liebert twins escapes by crawling through some vents while heavily pregnant. She goes into labour just as she gets out of the building. So close...
  • Most Fruitful Yuki:
    • The titular heroine is a gloriously Exaggerated exemplar. Yuki is eager to start a family with her husband Kenji, a student at a prestigious Ninja School. Her hopes are dashed when Kenji and the other students are captured and magically-imprisoned by the wizard Gorou. Daichi, a sorcerer who escaped capture, discovers a Loophole: Yuki can defy Gorou's magic as long as she is pregnant with Kenji's child. But training to defeat Gorou's minions in combat will take years, and the loophole closes when she gives birth. Yuki, willing to endure anything to save her beloved, convinces Daichi to cast a spell that will keep her pregnant while she fights the evil wizard. Her pregnancy is effectively a magical Power-Up and, thanks to her finesse, Yuki's large belly barely gets in the way of her Ninja moves.
    • This heroine is inspired by, modeled on, and named after the creator's sister. The real Yuki, on bed rest for pregnancy complications, told her brother that she felt "bored, frustrated and scared." To lift her spirit, Hayato Saito illustrated her as a badass pregnant ninja and showed her the manga in progress — a Power Fantasy antidote to the helplessness she felt. By the time Yuki gave birth, the first volume was complete and Saito gave it as a gift to his newborn niece.
    • The manga was later published, earning modest success and a cult following in Japan. It gained a bump in popularity after filmmakers asked to include it in Juno, realizing it would be of interest to the geeky pregnant protagonist. It has since been translated and released internationally.
  • Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: Despite her power and being the most prominent demon mother in the story, Lorem is not an example as her time while pregnant was peaceful and she never saw any action. Instead, the pregnant badass of the story is the Gothic Lolita Blood Knight, Nightmare. She can fight the final arc's Big Bad Crown on relatively even footing and, as she does so, Crown notices that she's very clearly taking care to not let her stomach be hit. He confirms she's pregnant by attacking her in such a way that she willingly takes a blow to the face over her stomach. When Crown calls her out on fighting in her condition, her response is to say the fight would be boring without a handicap and fake complications to trick Crown into a bad position.
  • Takeo Goda's mother in My Love Story!! is a physical powerhouse at all times, and was able to carry another woman to the hospital while in the middle of labor with him. When she has her second child later in the series, she repeats the feat.
  • Naruto:
    • Subverted, since Mama Bear Kushina Uzumaki restrained the Kyuubi after giving birth to Naruto. This is still impressive considering that this was hours after the birth.
    • Zigzagged with Kurenai Yuhi. As her specialty is genjutsu, illusions which typically requires a minimum of physical effort, she'd likely only be partially hampered by being pregnant. But since it's Asuma's child, her long term on-again-off-again lover who just died in battle, she chooses to stay out of going on missions while carrying. Not to mention Shikamaru constantly looking out for her, as the last promise he made to his dying sensei.
  • One Piece: Big Mom was already abnormaly strong when she was 5 years old. She gave birth to 85 children in 42 years, starting from being 18 years old to being 60 years old. And now she's 68, which means she spent most of her life time being pregnant and became one of the most powerful pirates while getting pregnant year after year.
  • A slightly more plausible example than many, but Shogun Yoshimune from Ōoku: The Inner Chambers refuses to call off a meeting with her advisors just because her labour pains have started, and continues to debate economic policy with them even during the climactic stages.
  • Two of these show up in Red River (1995). The first is Yuri during the Beida subarc and shortly before, leading the royal army. (Though she didn't know it at first) Later, we have Yuri's Ninja Maid Schala, who fought with the rebellious Egyptians to overthrow their regime and rescue Ramses.
  • It's heavily implied during Shaman King that before Yoh and the gang left for America, he and his fiancée, Anna, they... well... you know. Six years later in the epilogue we see their five year old son Hana... which means yes, in those few months of the last chapters, Anna would have been in those early stages of pregnancy.... and she still kicked all kinds of butt as usual.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, there was Anna's mentor, Umimi Habara, a pro-duelist and half of a Battle Couple with her husband Tobio; in truth, she was planning to retire from the pro-circuit for this reason, but wanted to duel one last time at a public event to announce it - at which point Anna confronted her about it as her opponent, dragging Yuma into it. Unfortunately, she became the latest Brainwashed and Crazy Barian victim in the process and then fit this Trope to a T. Fortunately, she got better.

    Ballads 
  • In the Child Ballad Fause Foodrage, the queen knows her baby will be killed if a boy, and so goes to escape in advanced pregnancy, just before she goes into labor.
    "O narrow, narrow is this window,
    And big, big am I grown!"
    Yet thro the might of Our Ladie
    Out at it she has won.

    She wanderd up, she wanderd down,
    She wanderd out and in,
    And at last, into the very swines' stye,
    The Queen brought forth a son.
  • In Tam Lin, Janet rescues her lover Tam Lin from the Fairies and breaks their spell on him while pregnant.

    Comic Books 
  • In The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, the heavily pregnant Princess Anne leads her armies into battle against the Cromwellian regime dominating an alternative Britain while just about ready to drop, goes into labour during the battle, gives birth (to twins!), and then gets right back up again and, bare-naked, leads the final climactic charge. The Boudicea-like imagery is not lost or wasted on her or her followers.
  • Taz from Atari Force, with the surprising bit being that nobody knew that Taz was female until Morphea found that out from a telepathic scan.
  • Forgotten Realms: An assassin caught the very pregnant lady Shaerl Amcathra and proclaimed she was his hostage. That is, he found a mid-level Cormyrean thief in the mood of a hungover cobra, then gave her a target less than an arm's length away and a surprise round to vent it. Before his next articulate word he was lying on the ground separated from his sword, and hurt in at least three places.
  • Galacta: Daughter of Galactus: Galacta currently qualifies, technically, although she isn't pregnant in the same way humans are. (It's similar, however.) When her hunger for life energy was increasing to the point that the temptation to consume the Earth became harder than ever to resist, she thought some evil parasite had infected her, and tried to steal the Ultimate Nullifier from her father's ship in an effort to purge it from her (even though the risk of destroying herself in the process was great). When Galactus stopped her from doing so, she found out that the "parasite" was actually a child she had conceived in the same method that he had conceived her. (She was, in effect, pregnant; the reason for her incredible hunger was simply, she had to eat for two.)
  • Mother of Champions from Great Ten. Perpetually pregnant, and perpetually a badass, too.
  • The Green Lantern Amnee almost defeats the baby-stealing villain Kryb in single combat while heavily pregnant. At one point, she uses her Green Lantern Ring to create a huge construct in the form of a newborn baby, complete with umbilical cord, and makes it beat Kryb up for her.
    • The only reason Amnee didn't win? She was in labor whilst fighting Kryb, which distracted her sufficiently that Kryb held out until she could summon backup: four Mind Controlled Green Lanterns, one of them Amnee's husband, who overpowered Amnee.
  • Indiana Jones and the Golden Fleece, which has Indy on a quest to find the Golden Fleece and stop a mad cult using it to summon Hecate features Omphale, also has him encountering an eight-months pregnant Grecian woman who attacks mad cultists with a rifle blazing, sneaks up on a Nazi and knocks him out with a tree branch just in time to stop him shooting Indy, pilots a Nazi plane from Greece to Turkey, insists on trekking at Indy's side all the way from Istanbul to Colchis to retrieve the Fleece, gives birth in the middle of a magically created blizzard, allows Hecate to be turned against the cult by presenting her with her newborn son, and repeatedly insults Indiana's name.
  • Marvel Comics' Jessica Jones. Highlights include beating up the Green Goblin with his own glider when she thinks something has happened to her baby, and disarming Kang the Conqueror and pointing his own BFG at him when he tries to threaten her in Young Avengers.
  • Ms. Tree: Michael is impregnated by an old flame who is manipulating her to kill his wife. She decides to keep the baby, creating a unique series of adventures of this homicidal PI fighting off criminals even while dealing with a full term pregnancy while the mob family she hates moves to protect her in their own way.
    Ms. Tree: [on the phone] I just shot two idiots and my water just broke.
  • In the New 52 Forever Evil (2013) series, Superwoman, the Evil Counterpart to Wonder Woman in the Crime Syndicate of Amerika, has been revealed to be pregnant. This hasn't stopped her superhuman rampages in the slightest.
  • Parodied in Power Girl. While at the movies, PG and Terra are watching a trailer for a comedy/action movie about a fat geek who has a drunken one-night stand with a gorgeous supermodel/international super-spy and winds up getting her pregnant. The model's firing uzis in battle when she complains that her water just broke, as the guy is trying to not throw up at the information in a book about birth. The movie is called Fat Guy and the Hot Chick.
  • Revival has Martha Cypress, who racks up multiple melee kills across the series including a Passenger.
  • Scarlet Witch effortlessly took out The Toad, her Stalker with a Crush, when he stormed the house in a battle-suit to profess his love. (It didn't help that his first reaction on seeing her hugely-pregnant self was "Yuck!")
  • Spider-Woman: Jessica Drew manages to take down a room full of Skrulls in the the galactic maternity ward after they invade and she is taken as a Pregnant Hostage. This leads to what may be the most grueling and difficult situation in her career. Her water breaks about halfway through the fight, she is given a a C-section while the invaders try to break into the operating room, tells the doctors not to use any anesthesia (because she intends to fight the Skrulls once they breach the door) and is still able to beat them up after giving birth. (She collapses from exhaustion and pain immediately after.) The newborn boy is safe.
    Jessica: I just want to keep you safe. [the baby kicks] You know momma would do anything to keep you— [baby kicks harder] Okay. You're right. It's time for momma to shut her mouth. [draws weapons] And go save the damned day.
    Klundirk: What? No! What are you doing?! You can't take on all those Skrulls!
    Jessica: Sure I can. I'm a Superhero, remember?
    Klundirk: You're also pregnant! Remember?!
  • Invincible: Atom Eve gets pregnant (for the second time) with the titular hero Mark’s child but unfortunately she can’t use her nuclear Imagination-Based Superpower to kick ass since she risks damaging her baby as a side effect thus she refuses to use her power. It’s only when Invincible Villain Robot endangers her, Mark and their baby (as well as taking off her leg) that Eve uses her powers to fight Robot off. Thankfully the baby (Terra) is born safe and healthy afterwards.
    • Dark example as Anissa rapes Mark in order to further the Viltrimite species and gets pregnant as intended, meaning everything she did as a Dark Action Girl before giving birth counts as this. This includes harassing a trauma-ridden and angry Mark.
  • In X-Force, Wolfsbane. She was already a pregnant mutant werewolf, which would be badass enough in its own right, but the strain of the pregnancy was killing her until Elixir altered her DNA to be more like her unborn baby's, resulting in super strength, bulletproof (at least) skin, and a significant enough upgrade to her already heightened senses that they're now more acute than Wolverine or X-23's. And why did Elixir have to do this? The father of her child is an Asgardian wolf-god.

    Fairy Tales 
  • In some versions of Rapunzel, the titular character is pregnant when she's thrown out from her tower by the Witch. Living alone in the desert isn't easy at the best of times, especially for a pregnant teenage girl who has no survival skills and has been isolated from the world by her Parental Substitute. She still does it.

    Fan Works 
  • The Myth of Link & Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as its name implies, adapts the events and content of the game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and this includes Urbosa of the Champions. Unlike the game, she explicitly has a biological daughter. However, her daughter wasn't yet born when Urbosa was recruited as Champion. She was pregnant with her daughter during the re-creation of "Champion Urbosa's Song" in which she wipes the floor with two Yiga Clan members. She's still pregnant during the coronation of the Champions, meaning she gained mastery of Naboris while she was still pregnant.
  • A Crown of Stars: Asuka was pregnant as she fought during the war to free her world from a blood-thirsty dictator. Justified because she was a mecha pilot.
  • The Child of Love: The plot starts out when Asuka finds out she is pregnant. Throughout the story she takes on an Eldritch Abomination and wins, and devises a plan to destroy another.
  • In Supergirl fanfic Hellsister Trilogy, Satan Girl is impregnated by Mordru. It doesn't stop her from fighting the heroes viciously or boasting that she can fight to the death as pregnant.
    Supergirl: [gasping] What do you mean, you lost your baby? Did you have a miscarriage? Remember, you were the one who wanted that fight.
    Satan Girl: [shrieking] Miscarriage! You pathetic lightling. I could bear children even if I were fighting to the death. They took my baby.
  • In the Superman fan fic Superman Starts family, Superman is a trans man who gets pregnant after being sexually assaulted by Lex Luthor. Superman looks through the rubble of a destroyed building for survivors and then battles Darkseid while twenty-seven weeks pregnant. What makes Superman extra ferocious when fighting Darkseid is that Darkseid had children as hostages.
    • Twelve weeks later, Superman prevents a plane crash and then has to fight Toyman to prevent him from taking hostages. During that battle, Superman goes into labor. Superman keeps fighting Toyman despite being in labor, and manages to subdue Toyman before giving birth.
  • HERZ: Asuka was pregnant with Shinji's child during the last battle. Even so, she fought and helped to save the world.
  • The One I Love Is...: Misato was pregnant during the final part of the Angel War. She still commanded her troops in battle and shot down an entire squad of soldiers that was about to execute Shinji.
  • The Omegaverse Assassination Classroom fanfic There Is No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin focuses on a pregnant-by-Karma Nagisa. The first dozen chapters focus on Karma learning to trust that Nagisa can take care of himself after his fight with Takaoka — which plays out almost exactly like it did in canon — and not be so overprotective. Afterwards, Nagisa still does minor exercises during training and also goes on the mission to save Irina (though the latter didn't play out as well).
  • ComicsNix fanfic Bella Swan Pregnant and Furious: Bella is pregnant — obviously — yet she is still able to kick the shit out of ninjas, pirates, zombies, and even Satan himself. And the funny thing is, it's all because the baby clothes she found were all very ugly.
  • Madeline Pairis-Frost on Honorable Hogwarts.
  • As in post-series canon, Zoe in the Firefly fic Forward.
  • In the Elemental Chess Trilogy, the pregnant Riza initially subverts the trope by submitting meekly to being placed under "protective custody" (read: house arrest) while her husband is on trial for high treason. When she finds out that he's being rescued from his wrongful execution and she herself has a chance to escape, she takes it and reaches the allied forces in time to help stop The Dragon from having her True Companions killed. The author admits to having made her pregnant just to be able to add it to the trope page.
  • TRON fanfic, Through a Diamond Sky: The Iso scout Kanna is carrying a new "spark" and gives birth on a Recognizer as the crew's making a run for it. This does not slow her down at all. She still holds her own with the rest of the cast in fighting off the Resource Hog Gang, including a chase on light-cycles and wielding a BFG. The last line of the story indicates her daughter turned out pretty badass herself.
  • In Game Theory, Megane is eight months pregnant and capable of calling forth her most powerful summons but the strain of using that much magic induces labor, which makes it a deconstruction.
  • American Dragon: Jake Long: A fanfic from the "Anything and Everything" series portrays Rose as such.
  • Lind in the Ah! My Goddess series was about as strong as they come, able to hold her own against Hild while she has an angel missing. However, in the story Ah! Archfall!, pregnancy actually triples her strength, making her the only one who can match Papa Jupiter in a one-on-one showdown.
  • In the Touhou Project fanfic Lovely Dream, Reimu is forced to carry a child due to the importance of her bloodline. When Remilia finds out she doesn't take it lightly cause she knows what it will entail as well as causing her more inmature side to surface. In her fury she decides to attack Reimu along with the entire Scarlet Devil crew. What follows is perhaps the most one sided buttkicking Reimu has ever delivered.
  • In Written in the Stars, Fem!Kirk's Prime counterpart remained on duty as Captain throughout her pregnancy, and then gave birth in the middle of a battle against the Klingons. Damn.
  • Non-combat example: In the Star Trek (2009) fanfic Kirk Starts A Family Aboard The Enterprise, Captain Kirk, a trans man, undergoes a routine physical in the Enterprise's Sick Bay, during which he has McCoy investigate why Kirk appears to be gaining weight. Kirk soon learns that he's pregnant. He continues to serve on the starship, while he's pregnant, all the way until he goes into labor. Said labor only lasts three hours, and then six hours after he gives birth, Kirk returns to duty.
  • This Shakarian short fic features a pregnant Fem Shep demolishing a team of turian terrorists. Garrus later chastises her for threatening their unborn son in the process.
  • In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic, Ready Buffy is still patrolling while pregnant (helps that she's not that far along). If anything, the pregnancy is helping her slay better due to Mama Bear tendencies. It ties into one of the main sources of conflict in the fic; Riley, the baby's father, wants Buffy to stop slaying period, which she can't do.
    • Giles also tells Buffy about Nikki Wood, who killed a vampire whilst pregnant and without her powers simply because she didn't want it to hurt her unborn child.
  • To Fill The Void has Villain Protagonist Taylor Hebert get pregnant when she has grief sex after losing her father to another supervillain (and losing her boss and arch-nemesis to an Endbringer). The premise of the fic is her having to balance being a supervillain with being a teen mom, though she is still more than capable of joining in a gang war while pregnant.
  • The Bridge at one point has Princess Cadence fighting a resurrected King Sombra alongside Xenilla and doing her equal share of damage. Several chapters later, it's discovered that she's pregnant, and judging by how far along she is, this was the case during this fight.
  • The Metroid AU fic, Destiny Interrupted: Days of Change revolves Samus Aran's pregnancy after the BOTTLESHIP incident. At first, Samus's pregnancy didn't affect her mission in Bryyo, until a few months that she is forced to withdraw from her mission. In the near end of the story, Samus and Adam quickly escaped and survived an assassination attempt and fled to Aether, where she gave birth to her child with Adam, Alexander.
  • A.A. Pessimal's Discworld tale Hyperemesis Gravidarum features no less than three. all three mothers-to-be are Assassins. And one in particular has a pressing reason to be badass while pregnant - informal assassins are out to kill her, her unborn child, and family members. She takes the ringleader on while very pregnant indeed.
  • Subverted in A Gem, a Human, and a Baby - It's stated in Chapter 5 that Blue Diamond didn't find out the Crystal Gems were still alive until a few months before giving birth, and that the only reason she didn't pull a Total Party Kill on them is because of Greg talking her out of it for the child's sake.
  • An Empire of Ice and Fire has Arya Stark partaking in both the Battle of Last Hearth and the Battle of Winterfell while in the early stages of pregnancy, and is still just as strong a fighter as always.
  • SAPR: Raven was part of the assassination team sent to kill Salem years ago while pregnant with Yang.
  • The first chapter of Valerie reveals that Sophia Hess, also known as the vigilante-turned-superheroine Shadow Stalker, was one- having kept her pregnancy a secret from everyone to protect her baby-daddy from retaliation, she donned her costume and went out on patrol while full-term pregnant and then went into labor after returning to the PRT building.
  • Averted for the most part in Son of the Sannin. No less that five different women give birth over the course of the series, and while all of them go on to be full blown Action Moms, none of them take part in battle while pregnant. The closest the series gets to playing this straight is Shizune, who spent the Sound Invasion at the hospital, having been put in charge of dealing with the casualties while Tsunade went to face her ressurected grandfather.note 
  • The Forever Captain series: Peggy keeps going out on missions even when she’s pregnant, with both Elizabeth and James.
  • Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls:
    • Cadance. She's a powerful Sternritter skilled enough to fight an Espada one on one, which is rare for Quincy. Granted, her pregnancy is still in the early stage, and the only reason she knows about it is that Sapphire used her powers on her. She's worried that she won't be able to do her duties once Shining finds out.
    • We hadn't seen her figt, yet but just the fact she holds a high rank in military organization (both of them), it's safe to assume that Radiant Hope is pretty badass. She was strong enough to save herself or her unborn child.

    Films — Animation 
  • According to Word of God, in the future, Maria from The Book of Life will face off against Chela the Bandit Princess while pregnant.
  • Pacha's wife Chicha in The Emperor's New Groove is pregnant throughout the movie (and shown realistically), but with the help of her young children is more than a match for the villain Yzma. Even Pacha was confident his family could handle themselves just fine with Yzma and Kronk.
  • Nala in The Lion King (1994). It is gently implied that her and Simba's cub was conceived in the "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" sequence, meaning Nala was pregnant when she was beating up hyenas in the final battle.
  • Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf - Moon Castle: The Space Adventure: Despite being pregnant for most of the movie, Wolnie teaches the others how to use frying pans with no problem and is still able to hold her own in combat during the fight with the Bitter Gourd King and his minions.
  • Fiona becomes pregnant in Shrek the Third. Her pregnancy doesn't slow her down in the slightest when Charming takes over Far Far Away. Her mom breaks them out of prison and they rally together to save Shrek.
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Like her comic counterpart, Jess Drew is a version of Spider-Woman who stays active while pregnant. She is also a Badass Biker who uses her motorcycle for speed and combat. Upon meeting her, Gwen is impressed.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Anger of the Dead: Alice is a woman who's four months pregnant at most, and is quite capable of handling herself against any enemy, whether human or zombie.
  • Conan's mother in Conan the Barbarian (2011). A Lady of War, she is mortally wounded and wants to see her son before her death. Her husband then helps her, carving a caesarean section with his sword, and she gives birth to Conan on the battlefield.
  • In Drunken Master II, Wong Fei-hung's pregnant stepmother wants to fight, but nobody will let her, though it's shown she has the ability to kick just about anybody's ass. Subverted in that she's not really pregnant and was just faking it so her husband wouldn't punish Fei-hung too harshly for being out of bounds and getting smashed to fully exploit the power of the Drunken Fist style while in the middle of a street brawl. Then it turns out she is pregnant.
  • Angela Bayer in the direct-to-video thriller Exception to the Rule. Despite being several months pregnant, she puts up a fight - and ultimately defeats - the murderous villainess Carla Rainer.
  • Marge Gunderson in Fargo is a police officer investigating a kidnapping. She is seven months pregnant and realistically slower than usual, but brave and tough enough to face dangerous criminals. Arguably the Trope Codifier in modern Western media and certainly one of the most famous examples.
  • The titular character in Godzilla (1998) is pregnant during the first act of the film and still capable of destroying helicopters with ease.
  • Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire... or so Peeta would have you believe.
  • Marie, the hotel owner from In Bruges.
  • Juno features the manga Most Fruitful Yuki and its pregnant Ninja heroine. See the "Anime & Manga" folder above.
  • Anita Mui's character in Stephen Chow's Justice My Foot. Keeps fighting right until she goes into labor, and even for a brief while afterwards.
  • Kill Bill:
    • The Bride, although she'd literally just found out she was pregnant (test still in hand). Also, she and her attacker decided to just walk away instead of fight. Otherwise an aversion, which led to the plot occurring.
      The Bride: Before that strip turned blue, I was a woman. I was your woman. I was a killer who killed for you. Before that strip turned blue, I would have jumped a motorcycle onto a speeding train... for you. But once that strip turned blue, I could no longer do any of those things. Not anymore. Because I was going to be a mother. Can you understand that?
    • Also, Vernita Green was a villainous example. If you do the math, she would have been at least three months pregnant at the time of the Wedding Chapel massacre, due to the fact that the event took place four and a half years before the Bride confronted and killed her, and that her daughter Nikki was four at the time of Vernita's death.
  • Rene Russo's character in Lethal Weapon 4.
  • In Mad Max: Fury Road, at least two of the Wives are pregnant, especially Splendid who is over eight months into her pregnancy. However, this does nothing to hinder them from helping Furiosa and Max around the speeding War Rig, and Splendid even uses herself as a Human Shield to prevent Joe from shooting Furiosa. Sadly, it also results in her death when she can't regain her footing and falls from the War Rig, killing both her and the unborn child.
  • Oak, the heroine of Mohawk, is two months pregnant when she embarks on her Roaring Rampage of Revenge and wipes out the patrol of American soldiers who killed her two lovers.
  • Monster Party: Iris is two months pregnant, but does a good job of grappling with and escaping from most of the homicidal party guests.
  • The Kaiju Otachi from Pacific Rim is revealed to be pregnant during the Hong Kong attack. This doesn't stop her from fighting three Humongous Mecha, decapitating the Crimson Typhoon, crippling Cherno Alpha, and almost destroying Gipsy Danger.
  • In Scarecrow Slayer, Deputy Rachel goes out to hunt down the undead scarecrow Serial Killer despite being seven months pregnant, and makes the best showing of any of the law enforcement personnel in the movie.
  • Contestant Dawn in Series 7: The Contenders, who also has a streak of Sociopathic Hero.
  • Mina from She Shoots Straight, a policewoman who discovers she's pregnant... days after her husband's death. She then goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge while carrying her baby, killing the entire gang of gunrunners responsible for killing her husband. The Dragon of the gunrunners (an Amazonian Beauty herself) took advantage of Mina's weakness in the final fight by kicking her stomach, but Mina still wins by way of Breast Attack.
  • Shoot 'Em Up: A Downplayed example with Oliver's mother who manages to evade her attempted killer reasonably well considering she's in active labour and likely almost fully dilated. She also tries to shoot him but misses, but still, points for attempting.
  • Spy Kids: All the Time in the World opens with a heavily pregnant Marissa taking down several mooks and catching the Timekeeper. Right after her waters have broken.
  • Averted with Padmé from the Star Wars prequels in a case of Badass Decay. In the second film, she is running around with bared midriff and firing a blaster at enemy droids. In the third film however, once she becomes pregnant, she is very much a Damsel in Distress, more emotionally than in the literal sense, but justified in that she's pregnant with twins and could easily injure herself or the children at that point in the pregnancy, and in fact suffers what's essentially Death by Childbirth and Death by Despair after she delivers them.
  • Non-combat example: In Summer School, Rhonda goes into labor while taking her Remedial English final exam. She conceals this until she completes her test, and still scores significantly better than her previous English grade.
  • Kate Connor in Terminator Salvation. John wants her off the front lines where she’s in less danger but she fights him on it and fights pretty hard in the climax of the film while John is in danger rescuing Kyle from Skynet.
  • Underworld films:
    • Although her knowledge of it is never confirmed, it is highly likely that Selene is pregnant in the opening sequence of Underworld: Awakening, jumping off buildings and dodging flamethrowers, before she is taken hostage and put into frozen stasis for more than a decade, waking up to find a pubescent daughter.
    • Sonja is consistently a badass in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, and is revealed to have been pregnant for the entire movie towards the end.
  • In Vampire Diary, Vicki continues to act as a Serial Killer while pregnant.
  • Vengeful Beauty: The titular heroine, named "Bloody Hibiscus", is an assassin, killer of corrupt officials and expert fighter who can take names with ease... and she is three months pregnant right in her very first action scene! Sadly after being double-crossed by her close ally who turns out to be The Mole halfway through the film, she ends up suffering a Tragic Stillbirth.

    Literature 
  • The climax of Eric Flint's 1632 has not one, not two, but three pregnant badasses shooting up an army of Croats that attack their town. Promptly lampshaded when another character comments, "Boy, did they pick the wrong time to piss off pregnant women."
  • Acid Row: At six months pregnant, Melanie rips off her jacket, jumps on Kevin, wraps him in the jacket and rolls him around on the ground to put out the flames when he accidentally sets himself alight, nearly setting fire to herself in the process. She's also one of the first to stand up to Wesley and shout down his attempt to burn down Humbert Street, holding her ground even when he and his friends threaten her.
  • Kitai is pregnant during the entire last book of the Codex Alera. This doesn't stop her from being very, very badass.
  • An honorable mention must go to the unnamed mother of Conan the Cimmerian, who it is explicitly stated gave birth to him on a battlefield.
  • The Dark Tower: Susannah Dean was scary enough already without a demonspawn Fetus Terrible bringing out her terrifying Mama Bear side.
  • The Diadem Saga: As Aleytys herself later describes, in Diadem from the Stars she walks halfway across a planet barefoot and pregnant, surviving by her wits and her Psychic Powers. A somewhat more realistic example than most in that she lives out the final months of her pregnancy in relative safety after being adopted into a clan of witches.
  • Discworld: Low King Rhys Rhysson/Low Queen Blodwyn is a pretty tough customer in Raising Steam.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Charity Carpenter is first introduced in Grave Peril as Michael's very pregnant wife. She is later kidnapped by the baddie wanting to get back at Michael, while she isn't able to escape herself she is able to put a very impressive fight. Needless to say, her status as an Action Mom in later books didn't come as a surprise.
    • In Skin Game, it's revealed Harry himself is pregnant with a spirit daughter as a result of Lash's sacrifice in White Night. This retroactively qualifies him, as you can't get much more badass than completely genociding the things that took your other child.
  • The Lady Jessica, in Dune, quickly forces Stilgar (the leader of his sietch and therefore its mightiest warrior) to submit and keep the other Fremen at bay. She does this while not heavily pregnant but pregnant nonetheless.
  • In Dies the Fire, the first volume of S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series, nine-months-pregnant Juniper Mackenzie leads the Clan Mackenzie in battle against a group of Eaters (crazed cannibals), goes into a holy berserker-trance in which she invokes the Blood-Crow aspect of the Goddess, and opens the battle by killing the first Eater with an arrow. The Mackenzies win. The moment the battle is over, Juniper goes into labor and delivers Rudi Mackenzie.
  • The Empirium Trilogy: By the time Rielle joins the angels, she's pregnant with Eliana. She doesn't let her prgnancy get in the way of aiding Corien with his resurrection plan.
  • In Dark Moon, Tek tosses one of Korr's thugs off a cliff and fatally injures him while carrying the twins.
  • Invoked and averted in Frostflower and Thorn when Frostflower, questioned about Starwind's real parents, says (truthfully) Thorn is his mother only for Maldron to reject the confession out of hand as a lie: Thorn was nowhere pregnant enough just weeks ago to have given birth to the newborn Starwind.
  • Anna from The Girl from the Miracles District is a heavily pregnant muggle woman in an urban fantasy World of Badass, yet when assassins come to her house, she takes down half of them with a shotgun.
  • Peeta from The Hunger Games claimed that Katniss was pregnant, likely making some people think she was this. It was just a lie to get sympathy so likely averted. Finnick used this a lot in the Quarter Quell when Katniss freaked out.
  • Inkmistress: Ina is a formidable Dark Action Girl capable of hurling fire and transforming into a dragon who it turns out is also pregnant. This doesn't ever slow her down until right when she goes into labor.
  • The story-within-a-story of Tadeusz Borowski's "The January Offensive" features a pregnant woman who joins the Russian march on Berlin in WWII, stopping for only a day to give birth to her child before carrying it along with her on the march. The story's listeners consider this implausible.
  • The Last Days of Krypton: A pregnant Lara doesn't flinch when confronted about her unflattering writings about Zod.
    Lara:' Was my grammar incorrect? The spelling? Maybe you didn't like my descriptions. Too many adverbs? Or perhaps I should have taken more creative license in describing Zod. But you did want this to be a history instead of a fantasy, right? Or did I misunderstand you? I particularly like my account of the annihilation of Borga City. Quite vivid prose. I wanted to add interviews with all those dissidents who cheerfully changed their minds and conveniently retired, but I couldn't find any of them. Not a one! Do you suppose something terrible happened to them?' Maybe we should tell the General. He'll get to the bottom of it.
    Aethyr:' Silence! I won't hear you speak of him that way.
    Lara: Oh, his actions speak well enough for themselves.
  • in The Last Orc (sequel to The Last Dragon), Juna's hardassery and Mama Bear attitude (she already has one child) seem directly proportional to how far she's gone. She relaxes somewhat after the twins are born, but this woman has led a sortie against the orks while heavily pregnant, not to mention organising the defense of a besieged city pretty much single-handedly.
  • Legacy of the Dragokin: A flashback reveals Daniar was this at one point. Deconstructed as a belly wound killed the fetus.
  • In Roger Zelazny's Lord Demon several female demons go into the most recent grand battle pregnant, and at least one of the young demons has been born during this battle.
  • Liara from Loyal Enemies is pregnant with her second child and an asskicking battle mage. Her husband tries to make her stay at home at least until the child is born but she insists on fighting, and the fact that she's expecting doesn't slow her down in the slightest. Deconstructed when she dies in the final battle, buried under the ruined wall. The child, obviously, dies with her, and her grieving husband promises to himself that his living daughter will not become a mage under any circumstances.
  • Top Speed in Magical Girl Raising Project is in the killing game while being three months pregnant; her magical girl form hid the fact she was pregnant at all. Unfortunately, Swim Swim kills her after a difficult battle against Calamity Mary.
  • Meg Langslow in Stork Raving Mad just as she's about to give birth to twins.
  • In Broken, Elena's mate's and father-in-law's overprotectiveness drives her directly into adventure. And despite her newfound caution and her center of gravity being thrown off balance, she still manages to kick large amounts of ass. And then she learns she's the equivalent of nine months pregnant for her race and she's having twins.
  • Alexia Tarabotti in Gail Carriger's The Parasol Protectorate series. Most notably she manages to fight with and then rescue an entire vampire hive from a mechanical octopus machine, deal with a freed pack of moon-crazy werewolves and manage to get control of the situation and protect everyone, all of this minutes before giving birth.
  • In Eric Nylund's Pawn's Dream, the antagonist is given a huge power boost in the final battle because of her pregnancy, as magic is powered by dualities. Having two beings (well, three, she's pregnant with twins) in one body is a major one.
  • In River of Teeth, Adelia Reyes is very pregnant when she kills a large, feral hippo with a knife. She is also not beyond working as a contract killer despite her advanced pregnancy, or swimming through a lake infested with feral hippos to get away from pursuers.
  • Reiko from the Sano Ichiro mysteries. Being pregnant doesn't stop her from getting involved in dangerous detective investigations, or getting into knife fights with crazy villains and winning.
  • Lisanne Norman's Sholan Alliance series features Carrie Hamilton-Aldatan, a lady who fights a Duel to the Death while pregnant. During a subsequent pregnancy, she goes off time travelling.
  • The Silerian Trilogy: Mirabar isn't slowed down as a fighter even when heavily pregnant (it's helped by the fact she does this with magic). In fact, she even gets stronger, since her unborn baby daughter starts helping her with magic she's inherited that Mirabar lacks.
  • Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow, is exceptionally fond of this trope. Pregnancy will make tough women even tougher (Sofia Mendes in The Sparrow, Ha'anala in Children of God, Mirella in A Thread of Grace). A standout example is Claudette/Claudia from A Thread of Grace. Gradual character development caused by being on the run from the Nazis turned her from a bratty teenager into a serious girl wise beyond her years. However, being married, knocked up and widowed all within a few days causes her to take several levels in badass. While pregnant, she's running dangerous missions for the Italian Resistance. By the last days of the war, she's mowing down ambushing Nazis with a machine gun.
  • Star Wars Legends: In general, any Force-Sensitive woman from a species that gestates their offspring internally can be expected to become even more powerful when pregnant because Force-Sensitivity is hereditary, allowing the mother to directly call on the baby's power to enhance her own.
    • Mara Jade in the New Jedi Order books, compounded by her also having a debilitating disease for part of the series yet still managing to kick massive amounts of ass.
    • The Thrawn Trilogy: Leia Organa Solo, pregnant with twins, being accepted as the Mal'ary'ush by the Nohgri and showing them how the Empire has only contributed to their problems. When she's pregnant with her third child in Dark Empire, she shows herself capable of matching Luke in a lightsaber duel.
  • Tales of the Branion Realm: Averted a couple ways in The Stone Prince. Isolde DeKathrine is betrothed to the eponymous Prince, and unknowingly a couple weeks pregnant with his child, when she helps fight off an attack on the royal party (due to Gender Is No Object, she's a fully fledged knight and lord). Months later, after they're married, she is forbidden to come with her husband to war once it's discovered she's carrying the next heir to the throne. She is absolutely furious with him, even though he's her monarch by this point, and all their servants and guards are quite aware of it.
  • Thursday Next in Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots. Initially averted in that she's hiding out in the BookWorld because her assorted enemies mean it wouldn't be safe for her to stay in the Outworld during her pregnancy. Still, she ends up saving the day in the BookWorld.
  • In the Time Scout series, Ann Vin Mulhaney (resident gun expert) is pregnant as of the last two books.
  • Tanya von Shrakenburg in Under the Yoke by S.M. Stirling is attacked by guerrillas while heavily pregnant and directs the fight against them. She's a villain, but definitely a badass.
  • In the first Warrior Cats book, Brindleface is noted as being very close to having her kits, but still fighting as hard as she can to defend the Clan when their camp is attacked.
  • In The Wheel of Time, the nine-months-pregnant Shaiel, a Maiden of the Spear (woman warrior), walked with a massive army hundreds of miles to a foreign land to hunt down a king, climbed a mountain to fight the decisive battle, and then gave birth in the middle of that battle to The Hero. Also Elayne, and very possibly Aviendha, in later books.
  • Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston retells the Chinese legend of Fa Mu Lan in Chapter 2, including the heroine becoming pregnant during war and giving birth during battle. She even wore specially-made armor during her pregnancy that would fit around her enlarged stomach.
  • In Xanth, Queen Irene's talent over plant growth is enhanced to Sorceress (aka Magician) level while she is pregnant with Princess Ivy, who even before birth was evidently demonstrating her Magician level talent of enhancement. Irene's power level remains that way even after Ivy is born.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Alias: When Sidney Bristow was pregnant with Vaughn's child and he was not really dead, she used her hormones as an excuse to kick his murderer out a window. Note he was tied to a chair and five stories up. And despite her pregnancy, she remained an active agent and was able to do all that it required.
  • Invoked by George on Alien Nation when, having had his machismo belittled by Sykes all episode for being pregnant, he absolutely creams a thug who threatens both cops, then explains that he was protecting his baby.
  • Darla, the only vampire who ever got pregnant in Angel. She still had all of her extra vampire strength, leading to some violence when she went into labor... and all that extra hunger can rack up a huge kill count.
    • Earlier on in Season 1 Cordelia gets demonically pregnant which boosts her strength as she effortlessly knocks out Wesley when he’s trying to get rid the hell spawn. Later in Season 4 poor Cordy gets demonically pregnant again and is very violent and villainous due to her child (Jasmine) controlling Cordelia’s actions.
  • As of the Arrow season two finale, Lyla.
  • Ashes to Ashes (2008): Jackie Queen headbutts a pornographer while vastly pregnant, and insists on tagging along on the team's investigation. And she's not even a copper. Then again, she's from Glasgow.
  • In the Hallmark Channel's An Aurora Teagarden Mystery: A Bone to Pick, Lynn Liggett-Smith is a heavily pregnant police detective who resents Amateur Sleuth Aurora horning in on her case. When Aurora is cornered by the killers, Lynn arrives in a Big Damn Heroes moment and points her gun at the bad guys, warning them "I'm pregnant and extremely cranky!" She then asks Aurora to cuff the suspects for her, since she's just gone into labor—but she still finishes the arrest.
    • By the time of the seventh Aurora Teagarden TV movie, Last Scene Alive, Lynn is once again pregnant and is still a tough cop, although she has now been promoted to Da Chief and doesn't take part in as much physical action during the investigation.
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003): While it probably counts as a Mama Bear moment, Sharon cracking a bulletproof window with her head during late pregnancy was certainly a feat of badassitude. When a group of marines arrive to take her away for a forced abortion she picks up a chair and successfully knocks one of them down before they overpower her. Then again, she is a Ridiculously Human Robot
  • Temperance Brennan on Bones. Heavily pregnant and still ran right into a fight with a perp despite Booth warning her not to. Briefly played for laughs when she falls into a narrow space and her stomach keeps her from getting up.
  • Piper from Charmed (1998). She was made more dangerous because her unborn son protected her with a force field. Well, when it wasn't turning her explosions into bursts of flowers, or switching her powers with Leo's. Unfortunately, her second pregnancy is just the opposite and leaves Piper essentially bed-ridden (because Piper's actress was actually pregnant.)
  • Kim Burgess from Chicago P.D. became pregnant during the show's seventh season. She was put on lighter duty as a result and ended up working as a 911 operator. She received one call about a domestic violence case and became personally involved. She got into a fierce fight with a sexual predator while trying to save the victim. Deconsructed, she succeeded in subduing him, but lost the baby.
  • Class of '07: Sandy, who's grown into a fighter, turns out to be pregnant. It doesn't stop her at all, and they don't even realize she's pregnant initially (it's early, her concealing clothes hiding the bump).
  • Faith is nine months along in the present day portion of Curfew. Motivated by getting her baby out of totalitarian England, she stops at nothing in an effort to win the race that will grant her and her baby passage to a safe place. She kills several people she deems a threat to the child including the baby's father, "The General" and lays a trap for other entrants in the race, taking out several of them. She goes into labor before she can finish and gives birth some distance from the finish line. However, she insists on going there anyway where she gives her baby to the winners to be taken to safety.
  • Desperate Housewives has Lynette Scavo, who pushes a young girl out of the way of a crashed plane barreling down the street while pregnant with twins. Unfortunately, the event causes her to miscarry one of those twins.
    • A later example finds her convincing a serial killer, a very troubled boy she befriended, to help her deliver her baby, save said baby's life, and winds up convincing him to turn himself in.
  • Doctor Who: Amy Pond on two occasions:
    • While it was an alternate timeline, in "Amy's Choice", she definitely counts. She was toward the end of her pregnancy, describing herself as "a boat". Despite this, she's able to keep both the Doctor and Rory at bay, and was mowing down aliens left and right.
    • The next series, the trope gets zigzagged to hell and gone. Amy is pregnant, then not pregnant, then the TARDIS can't tell if she's pregnant, then she turns out to be a duplicate, while the real Amy is kept in a coma while pregnant, somewhere out of the Doctor's reach. And the baby? She turns out to be River Song.
  • Farscape
    • During The Peacekeeper Wars, Aeryn Sun fires on her enemies while in labor.
      Aeryn: [teary, minutes from birth] Shooting makes me feel better!
      • Earlier, Aeryn pointed out to John that she was "pregnant, not incapacitated." Clearly.
    • Commandant Grayza, who killed her lover (and commanding officer) because he considered surrendering to the Scarrans and then took over command despite the High Council's orders. When questioned:
      Grayza: Don't let the belly fool you, Lieutenant. You were aware of my status?
      Lieutenant: Commandant, ma'am.
      Grayza: And who in this battle group outranks me?
      Lieutenant: No one.
  • Jules from Flashpoint in Season 5.
  • Joe Pickett: Jeannie Keely is seven months pregnant, but when she finds out that Wacey (who is threatening her at gunpoint) killed her husband, she punches him in the throat hard enough to incapacitate him for ten seconds as she runs off.
  • Justified: Downplayed, but Ava gets some good Action Survivor moments in the last few episodes while she's unknowingly pregnant.
  • Keep Breathing: Liv, who's pregnant when she gets stranded out in the wilderness, proves herself very capable (partly due to having been a Girl Scout years before). She even manages to get free from being trapped in a crevice through her sheer determination, survives falling down a mountain afterward (splinting her leg when it's sprained) then goes down a river on a log.
  • The Last of Us (2023): In a flashback, the pregnant Anna is being pursued by Infected. She manages to escape through a forest to a remote farmhouse and actually kills a Stalker while in the middle of labor and delivering Ellie.
  • The possibility of dying along with her baby on the island takes Lost's Sun from The Stoic to this trope in Season 4. Reaches its apex when a very pregnant Sun informs her Jerkass father that she's bought out his corporation and now, he works for her.
  • Late in season 4 of Manifest, it's shown that Drea Mikami has spent the first eight months of her pregnancy trying to break out the trapped Passengers from the detainment center after the government abandoned them to die.
  • The final episode of The Mentalist ends with Lisbon and Jane's wedding, immediately after which Lisbon reveals that she's pregnant. Which makes the fact that she helped take down a serial killer while wearing her wedding dress earlier the same day all the more awesome.
    • It's very very subtly hinted she's known about the pregnancy for a few episodes before letting on in the finale, so basically everything she does in the final half-dozen or so episodes of the show count towards this trope in hindsight, as well.
  • The final episode of Misfits ends with Jess deciding to have the baby she saw herself with in the bad-future the gang have just averted. While it's unclear whether she actually manages to conceive (the series ends just a couple of hours after the encounter with the man who she believed to be the baby's father), she's shown drinking orange juice while the other four celebrate with cans of lager. The really "badass" part comes into effect, though, when Jess decides to rally her friends (who are initially reluctant) to join her in forming a superhero team that can make real use of their powers. They finally agree, just before the credits roll.
  • The Night Manager: The very pregnant Angela Burr is mostly a back-office intelligence officer, but she shows a definite if desperate badass side in episode 6, when she ambushes the villain's Psycho for Hire, who has been sent to kill her and who is holding a hostage, shooting him in the leg.
  • Downplayed with Haley from One Tree Hill slapped Rachel while pregnant with Jamie.
    Rachel: You're lucky you're pregnant...
    Haley: No, honey, you're lucky I'm pregnant.
    • Played more straight before in the same season, she saved Nathan of a car attack and took the shock at his place. Pregnant and high school student don't prevent her to have a (tragic though) Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Helena on Orphan Black: She escapes from a military prison... twice! Then she camps out in the wilderness for weeks or months, hunting her own food and building a shelter from the hides. She also engages in hand-to-hand combat with Rudy, and defeats him, and rescues Alison from Neolutionists... with a crossbow! She even manages to kill somebody while in labour.
    • Partly deconstructed, in that she got stabbed in the womb during a fight, and most likely would have lost at least one of the twins if they hadn't turned out to have a supernatural Healing Factor. She tries to spend the rest of her pregnancy writing a book in a nunnery, after that.
  • In the last episode of Season 1 of Outlander Claire breaks Jamie out of prison, performs an incredible difficult and gruesome surgery to repair his tortured hand, and then literally wrestles him back from nightmares and PTSD, only to reveal at the end of the episode that she is pregnant with their child.
  • Juma from Brazilian 1990's soap Pantanal was heavily pregnant when she killed the assassin who was threatening her and the whole family of her father-in-law. She gave birth a few days later.
  • In Rizzoli & Isles, Jane refuses to let her pregnancy keep her from doing her job. She is nearly shot pursuing a suspect and is later actually shot by a sniper but it hits her bullet proof vest. She also saves a teenage girl from a hitman, but Jane later suffers a miscarriage after he hits her with a pipe.
  • Saturday Night Live:
    • When Mary Stuart Masterson hosted the show in 1992, she did a sketch called "Lisa Piongrasic, Very Pregnant Undercover Cop". She played the title role who was a hard-assed and pregnant police detective with Phil Hartman playing her superior and Chris Farley as her bumbling partner. The opening credits showed her with a baby bump climbing a chain-link fence, posing undercover as a prostitute, participating in a high-speed chase, throwing a bad guy over some garbage cans, and practicing self-defense training, getting hit head-on by a car, peeking out slowly from behind a wall on stakeout. The rest of the skit showed her and Farley trying to take down a drug dealer played by Dana Carvey doing a Scarface impression.
    • Also, Amy Poehler doing a Piss-Take Rap about Sarah Palin (while the latter was present) on a Weekend Update sketch.
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017): As of the start of season 3, Kit Snicket is pregnant. But it doesn't make her any less badass than she was before.
  • An non-action example: Maxine Peake's character Martha Costello from the recent British courtroom drama Silk. She's a barrister, she's pregnant, and she's such a darned Determinator that even a violent beating-induced miscarriage in the first season finale won't stop her from defending a client she believes to be innocent.
  • Sherlock: Mary would qualify. Don't mess with this lady or her husband.
  • Teyla in Stargate Atlantis. In one episode, the bad guy made a comment about Lorne's men letting her doing the interrogation; she responded by tapping the guy's shoulders with the log she used to knock him out earlier, then threatening to frame him to the villagers as a Wraith worshipper. And that's after Sheppard took her off active duty when she confessed that she's pregnant. A Wraith Queen tried to attack her baby in utero and she used her psychic powers to fend her off with unprecedented strength. Her powers are genetic, and she could resonate with her son, giving her access to double the psychic powers she previously had for the duration of her pregnancy.
    • Similar to the above Farscape quote, Teyla has to tell Ronon "I'm pregnant, not ill" when he suggests that she shouldn't be exercising.
  • Not quite as action-oriented as other examples, but in Stargate SG-1, Vala was pretty badass during her pregnancy. Even if you ignore the whole "left outside for several days while pregnant" thing, she later risked her life to warn Earth of the impending war and then insisted on traveling into said war with her husband. Granted, she was probably hoping to get back to Earth (which she did) but that's still pretty badass, especially for a heavily pregnant woman.
  • Star Trek:
  • Played with in the Studio C sketch, "Lady Shadow," where the titular character is trying to be her awesome spy self, but is having a bit of trouble...
  • Supernatural has an episode where Sam and Dean traveling back in time to the late 1970s save their parents from being killed. Their mom, Mary, is quite the badass hunter and assists them while pregnant with future badass Dean.
  • Gwen Cooper in Torchwood: Children of Earth. Although most of her badassery does occur when she's still in a fairly early stage of pregnancy.
  • In The Umbrella Academy (2019) Season 4, established badass Action Girl Lila gets pregnant with Diego's child (after sleeping with him in Dallas during the 1960s), but since she's only a few weeks pregnant at most, she's still capable of kicking plenty of ass. However, this trope does get subverted, as upon learning that his love interest has become his baby mama, Diego immediately tries to keep her safely out of the action as much as possible (even locking Lila in a closet at one point). Lila hates this, but she does admit that she's genuinely nervous about putting her unborn in child in danger herself — having never felt such vulnerability in her life before.
  • In The Originals Hayley Marshall is pregnancy through most of the first season and still manages to kick a ton of ass. A few hours after she gave birth and died, she was back on her feet, hunting down witches who stole her baby.
  • In The Walking Dead (2010), Maggie runs a large part of the Alexandria Safe-Zone, negotiates trade contracts with other communities, kills walkers without issue, and actively participates in a massive assault against the Saviors' compound. When she and Carol are later captured, they rescue themselves from their kidnappers and then proceed to kill every last one of them, including the reinforcements. She bluntly states that being pregnant isn't about to stop her from fighting to protect her friends and family, although she does agree to avoid direct conflicts from then on.
  • The Wheel of Time (2021): The Cold Open of season 1, episode 7 shows a heavily pregnant Aiel woman (who's Rand's mother, Tigraine) dispatching several fully armored Illian soldiers while fighting off labor pains.
  • Thanks to Real Life Writes the Plot, the title character of Wynonna Earp spent most of the second season visibly pregnant, while continuing to send Revenants back to hell, and even continuing her quite acrobatic hand-to-hand/sticks combat training. During the climactic episode of the season, she goes through all the action in several different outdoor locations while having increasingly frequent labour contractions. Though, curiously, they don't do the typical "water breaking" scene. (But the show does definitely not ignore some of the un-badass aspects of pregnancy. For example, when she gets close to term, she has to take pee breaks several times, and she really misses being able to drink alcohol. Though most of her pregnancy-related fragility comes in the form of psychological issues.)
    Wynonna: Pre-natal vitamins, Dolls - I feel like a mountain lion!
    Wynonna: [with a baby bump considerably bigger than her head] ...After we finish training, quitters! Come on. With great belly comes great responsibility.
  • Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess. Pregnant, but still managed to backflip and whatnot. Xena once fought off a small army of soldiers sent by the gods to stop her from giving birth, while she was in labor. As one fan noted, the woman must be made out of cast iron.
  • Scully on The X-Files in Season 8. Mulder is missing and the FBI isn't doing anything to find him. She's got a manhunt to head, a new partner to break in, and X-Files to solve, pregnancy be damned!

    Mythology and Religion 
  • Classical Mythology has Psyche, who was heavily pregnant with Eros' child the entire time she was on her quest to get him back. Said quest involved going into the Underworld for a box of beauty cream. To put it into perspective, only six heroes in Greek myth have ever done this successfully, and five of them were of divine ancestry. Psyche was the only woman, pregnant and completely mortal at the time, to pull this off successfully. In another part of the story, Psyche endures Aphrodite beating her up and having her whipped.
  • In some versions of the tragedy Deirdre of the Sorrows. Deirdre has just reached marriageable age in Iron-Age Ireland (15 for women, 18 for men) when she falls in love with Naoise and they flee Ulster to Scotland with Naoise's brothers to escape the wrath of King Conchobhar of Ulster, who wants Deirdre all to himself; in some versions of the tale, Deirdre and Naoise have a son, Gaiar, and a daughter, Aebgreine, during their self-imposed exile. For a young couple on the run (with her sweetheart's two brothers) from a very wrathful king and minimal experience with children, Deirdre manages as a mother.
  • Celtic Mythology: When Macha, wife of Cruinniuc, was heavily pregnant, her husband foolishly boasted that his wife was faster than the king of Ulster's horses. Displeased, the king arrested him and threatened to execute him unless Macha could back up his boasts. Macha, despite being in severe pain from the ordeal, managed to beat the horses in a race, then went into labor as soon as she won. Afterwards, pissed off that nobody helped her, Macha cursed the men of Ulster that for nine generations, during the time of Ulster's greatest need, they would all experience the pain of labor for 5 days.

    Podcasts 
  • The Gemini arc of Sequinox has Post-Apocalypse!Hannah.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Saraya Knight unknowingly wrestled while seven months pregnant with her daughter, Paige.
  • Similarly, Becky Lynch successfully defended her championship against Shayna Baszler in WrestleMania 36 while oblivious that she's a few weeks pregnant with her and Seth Rollins's child.
  • Lacey Evans was abruptly taken-off from a feud and scheduled championship match during early 2021 when she discovered she was pregnant.

    Radio 

    Theatre 
  • The Mrs. Hawking play series: Mrs. Hawking remarks that she continued her crimefighting while pregnant, only giving it up when she was "too damned fat" to maneuver anymore. In a deconstruction of the trope that crosses over with Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, she fears that doing such strenuous work while carrying a child might be, and indeed very likely is, the reason for her stillbirth— it could have been a bad fall, a blow from an opponent, or even just the stress she put her body through.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Exalted: Being that they are immensely powerful demigods, Exalts are capable of pulling this off. Exalted women often don't even show outward signs of pregnancy for much longer than normal, and even when they do, superhuman stamina, pain resistance, and dexterity means it fails to get in the way much. Tepet Ejava's mother Ellora pulled the "gave birth in the middle of battle" variant.
  • In Legend of the Five Rings, the Matsu daimyo thwarted an assassination attempt while six months pregnant. She, her husband, and their twelve year-old daughter killed a dozen of the Phoenix Clan's most skilled samurai.
  • The Weapons of the Gods RPG has the "Xia Pregnancy" ability, which allows a woman to fight at (almost) full strength while pregnant. It also protects the foetus from any attack that does not kill the mother, and, during the third term, from attacks that do kill her.

    Video Games 
  • Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal: If the player is romancing Aerie, she becomes pregnant early on in the expansion. Her stats aren't affected in the slightest, and this is around the level range where Aerie grows into one of the most powerful characters in the party. Character-wise, she Takes a Level in Badass in Throne of Bhaal anyway, so becoming pregnant is only incidental.
    • It gets better: take long enough and she'll give birth, right near the end of your adventure (and likely smack dab in the middle of a dungeon). After taking a few moments of rest she patches herself up with a few healing spells, then jumps right back into the adventure like normal. Even better: her son is an inventory item. By that point in the game, you are invading dragon's lairs and hellish demiplanes, and she's charging in alongside you with an infant strapped into mommy's backpack.
  • Bloodborne: Yharnam, The Pthumerian Queen, who was basically dressed as a bride and carrying Mergo inside her body during a boss fight with the player. You can even hear her baby crying. See it for yourself.
  • Ayla of Chrono Trigger is a Boisterous Bruiser cavewoman who clobbers a world-ending Eldritch Abomination with her bare hands. And depending on how you read some of her lines, she does all this while dealing with morning sickness. Or a hangover. Hopefully not both.
    • The ending adds evidence to this; when Marle (Kino and Ayla's direct descendant) tells him to have strong kids, Kino remarks "Don't worry, Ayla strong! Ayla have MUCH energy!", and Ayla drags him away before he can say any more, heavily implying they've done the deed many times. While this isn't confirmation in itself, no contraception existed back then...
  • Citizens of Earth: While it's never explicitly said that the yoga teacher is pregnant, she's visibly carrying a large belly and sometimes comments on having cravings for things like hamburgers. Despite this, she joins the Vice President's party in their quest.
  • In Dark Devotion, the Mysterious Entity is a visibly pregnant giant of a woman. She is also the last boss of the Den of Corrupted Nature, and her pregnancy does not detract from her ability to kick your ass.
  • Played with in Death Stranding. Sam is connected to a pod that has a living, seven month old human fetus inside, that he carries on his chest. He's connected to it by a cable that visually looks like an umbilical cord. The pod is connected to a scanner on his back that allows him to see the ghosts of the undead that roam the Earth. Sam traverses the ravaged United States with his mission of delivering life-saving cargo and connecting everyone to the Chiral Network, battling BTs, MULEs and Homo Demens, all while having the pod strapped to his chest. With that being said, the trope is played with because Sam isn't actually pregnant. He can unplug the cord at any moment with no ill effects to himself or the baby in it. Nevertheless, the visual metaphor is clearly there.
  • The happy-go-lucky yet very effective wavemaster Mistral in the .hack games is revealed in the Light Novel retelling to be Mayumi Kurokawa, a housewife pregnant with her first child.
  • Dragon Age: Origins has Morrigan. If the Dark Ritual is done, she is pregnant during the Battle of Denerim. If the Player Character sleeps with her but doesn't go through the ritual, she is still revealed to be with child during the epilogue.
  • Dragon Quest V: The Hero's bride travels and fights alongside him while pregnant. She only leaves the party when she is about to deliver her babies.
  • Dwarf Fortress: Pregnancy doesn't affect creatures in any way, so you commonly have pregnant dwarves beating goblins to death with warhammers, sometimes giving birth in the process, sometimes using the newborn infant as a shield... Foals and puppies, if born during combat, may actually join in, as a memorable scene of Boatmurdered demonstrated:
    "A few more war dogs ran out and attacked. I have to say I'm slightly terrified by them. One of the bitches actually gave birth while she was attacking, and her puppies joined in on the carnage."
  • Final Fantasy:
    • If you apply some thought to the gap between Final Fantasy IV and its sequel (and remember an early scene between her and Dark Knight Cecil), Rosa is implied to be one during most of the former, being that she manages to be 19 in the original game and 36 in the sequel with a 17-year-old kid. Perhaps unfortunately, though, the latest Updated Re-release of IV and TAY retcons the kid's age to 15, thus removing the primary evidence for Rosa being a Pregnant Badass. Fandom disagrees over whether to accept this retcon, as some people find the idea of Rosa beating up Zeromus while pregnant just too good to give up. Even if the retcon is accepted, Rosa is playable in the interlude that takes place between the two games, where she later states that she is pregnant.
    • Even if the retcon is accepted, Sheila (Yang's wife) was likely already pregnant with Ursula when she was beating up mooks with her frying pan.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • The women in the first half of Genealogy of the Holy War may qualify, if they get paired up; we never are given estimates of when most of their kids are born anyway. At least Lachesis is intended to be pregnant during The Battle of Belhalla.
    • Louise in Blazing Blade. In her A Support with her husband, Lord Pent, she reveals to him that she's expecting her first baby; said baby is the older of her two children from Binding Blade, Klein.
    • In Path of Radiance we are introduced to Ena, a young woman who is reunited with her betrothed at the end of the game, only for him to die in her arms. She then gives birth to his child at the end of Radiant Dawn, three years later. So this girl, who changes into a dragon, fought in two wars over four years, and was pregnant the entire time!
    • While there are no explicit cases of this in Awakening, it's possible for a recruitable child's father to die the battle after reaching the necessary Relationship Values with the mother, leaving some easy assumptions to be made.
  • The female player character in many Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games isn't slowed down whatsoever by being pregnant, and is capable of doing everything from devastatingly exhausting farm work to riding horses to mining with no ill effects. Some of the things the different husbands say during their pregnancy even lampshades this, to the effect of "If working hard on the farm like this doesn't make you sick, nothing will."
  • The Last of Us Part II: Mel and Dina don't let pregnancy slow them down. On one hand there's a certain brutal pragmatism to pregnant women fighting - it's the Zombie Apocalypse and everyone is a target, so everyone fights. On the other hand especially in Mel's case this almost stretches incredulity, as she volunteers to fight as a frontline soldier even though she clearly has a huge baby bulge and is a trained doctor (i.e a very valuable individual in what passes for post-apocalyptic society) and her friends all urge to stay in safety. This costs Mel her life when Ellie is forced to stab her to death in self-defence, and Ellie nearly has a sanity-shattering breakdown then and there.
  • Metal Gear Solid:
    • The Boss, toward the end of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, explains a lot of her Backstory to her prized pupil Naked Snake. The woman was pregnant when she and her compatriots participated in D-Day during World War II. More than pregnant — she gave birth by self-performing a Caesarean section while Storming the Beaches at Normandy. Pregnant Badass taken to extremes, perhaps.
    • Olga Gurlukovich, from Metal Gear Solid 2, also qualifies. It turns out that she was pregnant with her daughter Sunny during the Tanker Chapter that serves as the game's prologue. Surprisingly, being on the receiving end of Snake's tranquilizer pistol appears to have no adverse effects on Sunny's development.
  • The Thunder Serpent Narwa of Monster Hunter: Rise is an enormous Elder Dragon with what appears to be a pregnant, swollen belly. She actually just has the appearance of one, as it's actually an electrified organ she uses to generate magnetic fields to float. She's still capable of delivering quite the walloping nonetheless.
  • In Our Personal Space, your character has the option to become pregnant approximately halfway through the game. The daily routine of life rolls along as usual, though, and she's still perfectly free to go out on dangerous expeditions around the colony.
  • Potentially Frey and any of the Bachelorettes in Rune Factory 4. Being pregnant with Luna or Noel doesn't get in the way of silly things like farm work and knighthood in the slightest, and they remains every bit as capable of laying waste to the local monster population.
  • In the third season of Telltale Games' Sam & Max series, Sybil Pandemik is fifteen months pregnant when she volunteers to go inside the giant Eldritch Abomination currently rampaging through the city and fill in the team roles of psychologist, brain surgeon, veterinarian, scuba diver and dark wizard.
  • Sengoku Rance: Isoroku is one when she shoots an arrow to distract Xavier who retaliated by having her leg cut off! She even survived her pregnancy and delivered her son with Rance.
  • Heather Mason, the 17-year-old protagonist of Silent Hill 3 (and thus far the only female player character in the franchise) is revealed towards the end of the game to be pregnant with the reincarnation of the Silent Hill cult's God. It's unclear how far along she is, since it's a Mystical Pregnancy; one likely theory has it that she was actually born with the dormant fetus inside of her when Alessa creates her at the end of Silent Hill. Whatever the reason, though, that waif-like teenage girl who you've just helped through several hours of monster smashing is a legitimate example of this trope.
  • The Sims:
    • In The Sims 3, a heavily pregnant super-spy can raid the "secret" criminal base.
    • Elsewhere in The Sims, female characters in nine out of the ten hero classes in The Sims Medieval can continue to carry out nearly all of their professional tasks and quest actions while pregnant, unless they're actually in labor (with a few heavy-duty exceptions like dueling). This means that you can have a heavily pregnant lady spy, blacksmith, wizard, etc. who not only get on with their day jobs as usual, but will bravely run into the underground cave system to fight the dragon right up until the moment her waters break. There is one heavy aversion, however: a female knight who's visibly pregnant not only cannot complete quest objectives, but is unable to do most of her daily professional tasks, even ones a female monarch (for example) at the equivalent stage of pregnancy could do. She's basically limited to eating, reading, sleeping, and bathing until she gives birth. The discrepancy is presumably due to a glitch, since there seems to be no sensible reason why the knight alone is barred from working while pregnant.
  • Similar to Final Fantasy IV, the timeline of the Star Ocean series implies that Ilia Silvestri was pregnant with the hero of the second game during the final stages of the first. Even more impressive in Ilia's case since she's a very talented Bare-Fisted Monk.
  • Anyone who gives any thought to the timeline of the Suikoden games will realize that Lucia was pregnant with Hugo during the final part of Dunan Unification War.
  • Suikoden II Lucia acts as a general in a war at one point sneaking into enemy territory to kill their comander. We find out later she became pregnat at some point.
  • Super Robot Wars Z series: Despite carrying Gadlight's child, Annalotta's supreme dedication to his cause means that she's willing to pilot a giant robot and destroy anyone that opposes Geminis.
  • Jun Kazama, Jin's Missing Mom from the Tekken series. After the climax of the second game, Devil—having lost half of himself when Heihachi dropped Kazuya's battered body into an erupting volcano—tried to enter her womb and possess her unborn son. In response, Jun utterly stomped the bejeezus out of him.
  • At the end of Turok 3, if you're playing as Danielle, you find out she's been pregnant the entire time, thus securing the Turok lineage for another generation.
  • In The Walking Dead: The Game, Christa is predicted to be around 2–5 months pregnant, and she is amazingly skilled when it comes to zombie fighting (and possibly jumping on trains, depending on who you help onto Chuck's train). Season two confirms her pregnancy, showing her with a more visible bump, and proves that she hasn't lost any edge when she kills the girl who shot Omid in a moment of panic when he walked in on her trying to rob Clementine. Sadly, after the time skip, she's shown without her baby, leaving the players to only theorise on what exactly has happened.
    • Season two also introduces Rebecca, who is in her last trimester from the start of the game. While she doesn't get to fight many walkers or humans, she is more than capable of protecting herself and of keeping up with the rest of her group. She also takes an active part in the group's escape from Howe's. She's also very strong-willed and doesn't let anyone mess with her or her family.
  • The alpha female in Wolf (DOS) is every bit as capable during her pregnancy as she was before mating season. Join an elk hunt the day before cubs are due? Sure!
  • In Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, B.J's lover Anya from the previous game is now heavily pregnant with twins due to the Time Skip between the two games. This does not stop her from shooting or stabbing Nazis alongside her lover.
    • There aren't many games where you get to see a heavily pregnant, shirtless, blood-soaked screaming woman with assault rifles akimbo unleash More Dakka against a giant fire-breathing Nazi robot dog. note 
  • In World Neverland, being pregnant doesn't slow female characters down in any way. They can still take on dungeons and fight monsters. If a female Knight, Scholar, or Mountain Corps member is pregnant during the game's White Night Tournament, she's even capable of becoming the Dragoon—the most powerful warrior in the kingdom—while pregnant!

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • In the comic strip series The Adventures of Fifine, Beautiful Darkness takes down a cybernetic freak by poisoning him. Despite being in her first trimester.
  • The title character of the now-defunct Magical Girl webcomic Brigadier Swirl becomes a badass as direct result of becoming pregnant. Her unborn twins were actually the ones with all the powers. But since they are, ya know, inside her, their mother gets access to said powers by proxy. She and her four similarly powered-up friends (who were also pregnant, btw) go on to save the world from evil repeatedly... or would have, had the strip not ended after just two issues.
  • Demonseed Redux: Dee is pregnant with Chico's child and often doesn't feel well, but she can still pull up a fight.
  • The hyena mythology in Digger has a sharp deconstruction. When the male hyena god He-Is was corrupted into attacking his pregnant mate She-Is, the latter defeated him and was henceforth known as She-Is-Fiercer. However, the stress of being attacked and forced to fight so hard caused She-Is-Fiercer to miscarry. And this is why hyena females are stronger and fiercer than males, but first pregnancies have a high risk of miscarriage.
  • Dominic Deegan: Miranda Deegan saved the world from the Storm of Souls while heavily pregnant with her first child, Jacob.
  • Dragon Ball Multiverse: When Vegetto displays a lack of sensitivity over Bulma being tired after giving birth, he explains that Saiyan women were not as affected by the strain as human ones.
  • Drowtales:
    • Oiloss'lin Xyrrai'zestu Sharen, a cameo character, is three months pregnant according to the concept art. When she shows up in the story she has a Big Damn Heroes moment and saves her daughter from being captured.
    • Zala'ess Vel'Sharen also unflinchingly stares down (or more accurately up) Quain'tana, who has been called The Big Bad Wolf in universe, while being visibly pregnant. Only it turns out she actually wasn't, and was actually exploiting this trope in-universe, as drow value motherhood immensely and it's implied she did this to throw off Quain, who is actually infertile and is rather sore about this fact.
  • In the supplementary blog to Kevin & Kell, Lindesfarne notes that female bear hunting athletes actually try to become pregnant, since motherhood and impending motherhood makes them more aggressive (to the point that fertility drugs are classified as a performance-enhancing drug in their case). In the early 1995 strips being pregnant didn't affect Kell's performance as a hunter. And when she had cravings, she left windows open at night and ate would-be robbers. Lindesfarne herself survived two attacks by a carnivore supremacy terrorist group trying to kill her unborn daughter.
  • In the Looking for Group spinoff "NPC", Elosha (who appears to be the name of Tah'vraay's mother) can throw axes with lethal effect despite being in what looks to be late pregnancy.
  • All of the female leads in Olympic Dames gain abilities due to their pregnancy, but Kasumi and Catherin in particular seem to revel in their new found powers.
  • Kazumi Kato in The Order of the Stick #586, defending herself and her husband from a team of ninja assassins. This is also a quiet parody of the fact that there are no pregnancy rules in Dungeons & Dragons (there's really no need for them), so there's nothing stopping her from fighting at full capacity. Or more, if your campaign happens to have Mama Bear house rules.
    Kazumi: Why should I care how many people I have to kill? I can just make MORE in my TUMMY!
    [...]
    Ninja: Please, don't hurt me! I have children too!
    Kazumi: Yeah? Did you go through half a year of hemorrhoids to get them? Turn around, and I'll show you exactly what that feels like.
  • While we never see Miranda from Slightly Damned fight while pregnant, we do get to see her German Suplex a Demon less than 24 hours after she gave birth.
  • Vampire Cheerleaders: In the comic's final vol., Stephanie became the newly appointed Moth Queen and was helping them replenish their race. Which was during the time the Reptilians were hellbent on wiping them out, so she personally lead the charge against the Reptilians... until she started having contractions. She withdrew from the battlefield long enough to lay her next egg, and resumed fighting moments later.

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time:
    • Lady Rainicorn, as revealed in the episode "Lady and Peebles".
    • And in "Joshua and Margaret Investigations", we get to meet Jake's mom, who doesn't let her pregnancy interfere with her job as a monster hunting detective.
      Margaret: Come now, Joshua, even with this ankle-biter I'm as quick as ever. Sure, my waist is bigger, but that just means more bullets in my ammo belt.
  • Lana as of the season four finale of Archer. It gets more extreme the following season when ISIS is shut down by the government for performing unauthorized espionage and the cast forms a drug cartel.
  • Mudflap in the Bob's Burgers season three premiere Earsy Rider. Also doubles as a Badass Biker.
  • Sypha Belnades in the Castlevania Netflix series committed feats of combat and magic against nightcreatures and super vampires while a little over one-month pregnant.
  • Family Guy: At the beginning of "Petarded", Bonnie jumps while shooting.
  • Fox Xanatos of Gargoyles — Granted, it's before she's far enough along to be impeded, but she still announces her pregnancy to her father while dangling from the rope ladder of a helicopter, after having nearly staged a hostile takeover of his company (For the Evulz, of course). Given that he's pretty badass from his wheelchair, this may be genetic. She was also having a karate match with her husband right before she got the doctor's call. Fridge Logic leads one to assume Papa Wolf David made her give those up, however. Mere hours after giving birth, she shoots a Physical God with a laser gun. There is a reason she is Badass, people.
  • Primal (2019): Fang is pregnant from her late boyfriend Red, and she's still able to help Spear save Mira and other slaves from the Vikings. Then she lays her eggs, but she's still protective of them, even refusing to help Spear fight the remaining Vikings.
  • Star Wars Rebels: Hera Syndulla is revealed in the Distant Finale to have been pregnant with the son of Kanan Jarrus for the second half of season 4 (and likely a bit before then). During this time she led an aerial attack on an Imperial factory, survived an X-wing crash, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a trained assassin, was captured and tortured, lost the love of her life, and participated in the liberation of Lothal. Depending on the timeline, it is also highly likely she was heavily pregnant (or had at least recently given birth) during the Battle of Scarif. Hardcore, indeed.
  • In Wakfu, it is not outright stated but heavily suggested that Evangelyne is one at the end of Season 2. The manga confirms it, though when the action picks up again in the OVAs she's already had her kids. Comes back in force in Season 3, however, where she's in late-stage pregnancy and still capable of handing a demigod her ass in direct combat plus helping her husband against another one. The only reason she struggles with said demigod in the rematch is because she's literally about to give birth.
  • Queen Mera in Young Justice (2010) has no trouble joining her people to defend her home by using her magic to fight off the invaders attacking her home.

    Real Life 
  • This is the primary basis behind the evolution of live birth in orders of animals not limited to mammals (some sharks, snakes, frogs, and other oviparous animals have evolved pregnancy and live birth). Eggs can only defend themselves passively and either have to be guarded (like what alligators and birds do) or hidden and left to their chances (like what sea turtles do). If an egg is an embryo guarded by a wall, then pregnancy is an embryo inside of a tank.
    • Little known fact - the early stages of pregnancy actually make your body stronger and more efficient at using oxygen, in preparation for the more strenuous part of the whole ordeal later on. Has been used as a form of doping by sportswomen.
  • Pregnant athletes in general. Physicians generally advise mothers to "take it easy" by doing only moderate exercise. This means moderate relative to what the mother could usually handle. If she is already highly trained and conditioned, a pregnant woman can "take it easy" and still perform incredible feats beyond the ability of most.
  • Freydís Eiríksdóttir, daughter of Erik the Red, was mentioned in two Norse epics involving early exploration of the Americas. She battled several Native Americans while pregnant and bare-chested, when the male warriors were running away.
  • Mary Ann Patten, portrayed in The Captain's Wife. She was the wife of the captain of the clipper ship Neptune's Car. She had also studied navigation as (so she thought) a way to pass the time. When her husband was seriously ill (perhaps with meningitis), she took over the ship and sailed it round Cape Horn, while at the same time being The Caretaker to her husband. All the time being pregnant. She was one Pregnant Badass.
  • A legend knows to tell that the two infamous lady pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, of Captain "Calico Jack" Rackham's crew upon the capture of their ship were the only ones willing and able to defend the ship — since everyone else apparently was drunk as skunks. Bonney and Read, on the other hand? Both claimed pregnancy at trial, which called for evaluation by midwives. They were granted a stay of execution until after the births. Unfortunately, Mary Read died of an infection, but Anne Bonny disappeared from history.
  • According to another legend, Gráinne Ní Mháille (more commonly known as Grace O'Malley) actually gave birth in the middle of a sea battle.
  • Patti Graham, who married Robin Graham along his voyage around the world and returned from the voyage pregnant.
  • In his autobiographical book All Souls, Michael MacDonald tells a story of his mother (who was eight months pregnant) beating up a drunk neighbor who was harassing their family.
  • Empress Maria Theresa of Austria had sixteen children. She did this while administrating an empire and waging continent-wide wars. While in labour with Marie-Antoinette, she was reading and signing documents, pausing only to bring the archduchess into the world. After which she immediately resumed the paper signing. During another one of her labors, she called for a dentist—to remove a bad tooth, figuring that the pain of childbirth would overwhelm the pain of the extraction. At the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession, she rallied the initially hostile Hungarian nobility with a speech to the Diet, delivered while cradling her newborn son—prompting a famous and resounding cry, Moriamur pro nostro Rege, Maria Teresa! ("Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa!"). This woman breathed badass.
  • Maria Theresa's ancestor, Isabella I of Castile, commanded the combined troops of Castile and Aragon together with her husband Ferdinand in battle during the Reconquista while pregnant.
  • According to Women Warriors: A History by David E. Jones, "Phung Thi Chinh went into battle pregnant, gave birth on the battlefield, strapped the baby to her back, and fought her way back to safety." (She was one of 36 female generals chosen and trained by female revolutionary leaders fighting against the Chinese governance of Vietnam in AD 40.)
  • John Lilburne was a free-speech activist in England before and during the Civil War between the King and Parliament. He endured kangaroo courts, cruel punishments, and long prison sentences for his cause. But more relevant to this page is his wife, Elizabeth. During the English Civil War, John was captured by the King's forces and held at Oxford Castle pending a trial for treason. Elizabeth went to Parliament and talked them into proclaiming that, if John and two other prisoners were convicted, Parliament would retaliate against the judge and court officials. With two days left until the trial, she carried a copy of the proclamation over fifty miles, across enemy lines, alone, overnight, on a galloping horse, in the dead of winter, while pregnant, and arrived in the nick of time. The trial was called off, and John was swapped for a Royalist prisoner five months later.
  • The praying mantis takes this trope to levels once thought impossible, as demonstrated here.
  • Caterina Sforza was an Italian noblewoman in the Italian Renaissance who held the title of Countess of Forlì and had a reputation for being a badass even from her youth. The death of Pope Sixtus IV launched a firestorm of political battles and multiple sackings of Rome as the surrounding noble families made their bids to fill the void with their own puppet priest. In the face of all this, Caterina Sforza took to Rome on horseback with her band of mercenaries to stake her claim in the conflict. She occupied the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Pope's massive fortress and residence, by sword and cannon fire for a three-month siege by the opposing militias of various noblemen, after telling them, some of the most powerful men in Italy, to get bent, with Rome burning around her, while seven months pregnant. The only stopping point was when her husband, Girolamo Riario, agreed to surrender the fort to the Cardinal's control, only on the terms that they consolidated their power in Roman politics.
  • An American history book had a whole chapter about crossdressing girls in the American Revolution, including an excerpt of a report in which "a soldier was promoted to corporal for repeated displays of courage on the battlefield... since which time the corporal has become mother of a child".
  • Similarly, in the American Civil War, according to the book They Fought Like Demons:
    The unidentified woman from New Jersey was promoted to corporal prior to Fredericksburg. She was, apparently, a very good soldier. One of her comrades stated that not only was she "a young and good looking corporal,"but her "courtesy and military bearing...struck the officers very favorably." Furthermore, he proclaimed her to be "a real soldierly, thoroughly military fellow." She was also a valiant soldier. Although in her final trimester of pregnancy, she performed her duty at Fredericksburg, and she performed it well. On January 19, 1863 a shocked colonel with the Army of the Potomac wrote home that "a corporal was promoted to sergeant for gallant conduct at the battle of Fredericksburg—since which time the sergeant has become the mother of a child." Tongue-in-cheek he added, "What use have we for women, if soldiers in the army can give birth to children?"
  • On MythBusters, Kari handled guns and grenades as usual throughout her pregnancy, along with all the other usual stuff of myth-busting. She was more safety-conscious and cautious about body armor and such while pregnant, and it turns out they actually make bulletproof vests for pregnant women. Who knew?
  • This "My Life Is Average" story:
    Today, I caught two guys trying to steal stuff out of my yard. Needless to say, by the time I was done with them they had put everything back where they got it, were promising to bring the other stuff back that they had stolen, and were apologizing every five seconds. I am one tough pregnant lady.
  • This woman, who gave birth 7 hours after finishing a 26.2 mile marathon, which wasn't even the first marathon she ran while pregnant!
  • This woman is a physical therapist who scaled the steep rocks at Joshua Tree National Park while eight months pregnant.
    • To give some perspective on what Pregnant Badasses are up against, the comment thread of the linked article is full of active, athletic women describing the physical agonies pregnancy put them through (loosening of pelvic ligaments is apparently one of the worst).
  • Malaysian shooting champion Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi competed at the London 2012 Olympic Games while eight months pregnant. She is at least the fifth pregnant woman to have competed at the Olympics, but most certainly the farthest along. It helps that her sport is not very physically demanding, but she did have to withdraw from one competition since it required lying on her stomach.
    • Kristie Moore was five months pregnant when she served as the alternate in the Canadian women's curling team in the 2010 games. The team won silver.
    • Kim Yunmi won two gold medals in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games for Korea while seven months pregnant.
    • Kerri Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant when she won her third gold in London 2012-which doesn't sound very impressive until you learn it's in the pretty physically demanding sport of beach volleyball.
  • All-time tennis great Serena Williams was a few weeks into pregnancy when she won the 2017 Australian Open, her 23rd Grand Slam singles title.
  • A Sept. 2012 story was of a woman serving in the British military as a bombardier in Afghanistan, all the while pregnant...but not knowing of it until she gave birth. So she qualifies, even if she didn't realize it.
  • Amy Jo Johnson found out she was pregnant before filming the show Flashpoint. Despite this, she filmed the entire first season while pregnant (which couldn't have been easy; Flashpoint was a series about a SWAT Team). She then went on maternity leave and had her baby between the first and second seasons, and there are very few episodes of season 2 that omit her entirely.
  • Queen bees, who are responsible for laying all the hive's eggs and thus constantly pregnant, are the only type of social bees that can sting multiple times, in stark contrast to the defenseless and sessile queens of other hive insects such as ants or termites.
    • On the other hand, a queen bee's movements are often tightly controlled by her workers. The workers will defend her with their lives and do all the work for her, but otherwise her authority doesn't look like much.
  • Just about any female predator that lives a solitary life (and even some that don't) still needs to hunt while carrying. For example, female lions hunt while pregnant, and have evolved measures to make sure the fetus survives the term in the form of a network of suspending muscles around their uterus.
    • Little known fact: All mammals other than humans actually have MUCH easier pregnancies and birthsnote , with no dangerous physiological side-effects like morning sickness, pregnancy diabetes or pre-enclampsia, much less risk of bleeding out due to birth complications or dying of childbed fevernote , and most even have the ability to sacrifice the pregnancy 'at will' even in the late stages, if for example the weather that year is really bad and they're going hungry and thus couldn't raise healthy babies anyway. With humans, there's a kind of evolutionary arms race going on where the fetus needs more nutrients than other animals do to build that big brain, and thus gives off hormones to take control of the mother's metabolism and make the placenta grow into the mother's blood circulation so that it can't be ejected pre-term without major injury. While at the same time, human uteruses have evolved to be an extremely hostile environment to the eggs in the first few weeks, so that only (almost) absolutely perfect embryos get a chance to developnote  - because the whole process is just such a huge energy investment / health risk for the mother, and she only has about 15-20 chances for surviving offspring, what with humans usually only having one baby per pregnancy, not two or a whole litter, like most other mammals. By the way, this is also the reason humans menstruate, while other mammals don't: Instead of evolving a triggered abortion mechanism if anything goes wrong with the embryo, the human uterus is set to automatically flush out its entire lining (and therefore, any possible eggs that might have started attaching themselves) every few weeks, unless a cascade of "Everything's developing a-OK!" signals is given by the embryo. Yes, it's a waste of nutrients, the pain can be debilitating, it opens the uterus to potential infectionsnote , and the blood may attract predators - but that just goes to show that evolution doesn't go for the most rational or ideal outcome, but for what it can achieve by just altering whatever hormonal/genetic control mechanisms had already evolved earlier.
  • Professional wrestler "Sweet Saraya" Knight, known best in the United States as part of SHIMMER, unknowingly wrestled for six-and-a-half months with daughter Britani (now WWE's "Paige") in the womb.
  • This facebook post claims a woman swam a kilometer in a swollen river to give birth in a hospital.
  • While not a conventional badass, Tommitrise Collins took her psychology exam while in the active stages of labor.
  • Queen Mandukhai the Wise was known to fight in battles on horseback while heavily pregnant, on one occasion while pregnant with twins and was injured in battle, but both she and the unborn children survived and she eventually united Mongolia with her husband, Dayan Khan.
  • Gal Gadot was five months in with her second child during reshoots for Wonder Woman (2017). She did much of the stuntwork still, in cold weather, like a champ. To deal with the conspicuous aspects of this, the SFX crew wrapped her belly with chroma-key colored material to address in post work.
  • Similarly Scarlett Johansson was pregnant during Avengers: Age of Ultron but still filmed many of her scenes (including action ones) earlier on, before her belly began to show. In the later months CGI and stunt doubles were required for Scarlett.
    • It’s also ironically hilarious if you remember her character makes a big deal about being unable to give birth in the movie.
  • Carrie Coon did all the motion capture and voice work for Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Infinity War while she was pregnant.
  • Olympic athlete Alysia Montaño competed in the USA Track & Field Championships while 5 months pregnant with her second child, claiming “My intention is to inform and to empower.”.
  • US Women’s National Team Forward Alex Morgan was in the very early stages of pregnancy when the side won the 2019 World Cup.
  • Lights not only recorded the entire Little Machines album while pregnant, but went into labor while recording a song and finished the recording. Determinator, thy name is LIGHTS.
  • Kat Robertson Williams, an Australian firefighter who battled the New South Wales bushfires while 13 weeks pregnant.
  • According to Vietnamese legends, this woman fought off against Han invaders while pregnant at the time when the Trung sisters ruled Vietnam during ancient China's attempt to conquer it (which they did, but barely). Unfortunately, she committed suicide along with her newborn child when she learned about the Trung sisters' death. How tragic and badass.
  • While snorkelling in Florida Keys, Andrew Dukes-Eddy was attacked by a shark. Bleeding severely and unable to climb back into their boat, his pregnant wife Margot jumped right into the water and pulled him to safety.
  • CrossFit athlete Annie Thorisdottir stuck to a modified version of her intensive training regimen throughout her pregnancy.

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Mother Power

A hip-hop music video featuring angry pregnant ladies.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (3 votes)

Example of:

Main / PregnantBadass

Media sources:

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