Pregnancy Pathway — Exercise

dancingthrupregnancy exercise, pregnancy behavior, exercise, fetus, health, immune system, metabolic syndromes, moms-to-be, pregnancy, risk-aversion, stress, survival, weight

How lucky is this? Just a few days ago, yet anoth­er study was released and has been cir­cu­lat­ing on Med­scape and oth­er med­ical sites that indi­cates exer­cise is ben­e­fi­cial in preg­nan­cy, whether the moth­er is a pre­vi­ous exer­cis­er or not. Just in time for this entry!

Behav­ior Affects Preg­nan­cy Out­come

Phys­i­cal exer­tion (we call it “exer­cise” nowa­days) is a nor­mal state for healthy humans. Only in the last cen­tu­ry has the desire to rest or the need to store extra calo­ries as fat become more pos­si­ble to achieve than our need to move about to sur­vive.

Preg­nan­cy is a state in which both of these fac­tors (rest­ing and stor­ing calo­ries) are enhanced through organ­ic changes in body chem­istry, adap­ta­tions that favor fetal sur­vival. The cur­rent seden­tary lifestyle exag­ger­ates these meta­bol­ic changes and results in syn­dromes that increase the risk for a num­ber of meta­bol­ic, car­dio­vas­cu­lar and immuno­log­i­cal dis­or­ders of preg­nan­cy.

When con­front­ed by the idea that it is coun­ter­in­tu­itive to think exer­cise in preg­nan­cy might be safe (let alone ben­e­fi­cial) I am dumb­found­ed. To me, it is coun­ter­in­tu­itive to think that a seden­tary lifestyle in preg­nan­cy might be safe!

Burn­ing Calo­ries in Preg­nan­cy Improves Out­comes!

What is the evi­dence that exer­cise in preg­nan­cy is ben­e­fi­cial? Keep in mind that some stud­ies have been exe­cut­ed more expert­ly than oth­ers. But, what is com­pelling is that numer­ous well-respect­ed researchers have sought to test the hypoth­e­sis that exer­cise is not safe, but come away with results that indi­cate the oppo­site!

Here are some of the major find­ings:

• The pla­cen­ta is larg­er and has more trans­port sur­face in exer­cis­ers than seden­tary women

• The fetus­es of (aer­o­bic) exer­cis­ing moth­ers make ben­e­fi­cial car­dio­vas­cu­lar adap­ta­tions

• Women who do aer­o­bic exer­cise are less like­ly to devel­op severe preeclamp­sia or ges­ta­tion­al dia­betes, and the long term health prob­lems that accom­pa­ny these dis­or­ders

• Women who are aer­o­bi­cal­ly fit recov­er from birth 10 times faster than seden­tary women (as mea­sured by time need­ed to metab­o­lize free rad­i­cals pro­duced in labor)

• Women who exer­cise in preg­nan­cy are more like­ly to be phys­i­cal­ly fit in midlife