Exercise throughout Your Pregnancy for Your and the Baby’s Good

While the general belief opts for shunning exercising during pregnancy for fear of endangering the fetus, an opposite approach to that issue is growing stronger. A joint team of specialists from Polytechnic University of Madrid and the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, prove in their new study that it presents no actual danger for the unborn baby if the mom goes on with her exercising all the way through her pregnancy.

The study, written by Jonatan R. Ruiz of Sweden, the coordinator of the team, was published in the International Journal of Obesity. Ruiz concludes that “an exercise regime carried out during the second and third trimester of pregnancy does not harm the health of the fetus.”

The research involved the participation of 160 healthy women ranging from 25 to 35. They were selected from women with sedentary habits who showed no symptoms of a possibility of premature birth. These women were divided into two groups one of which maintained an exercise regime for the whole period of pregnancy. They were closely supervised by experts of two institutions, the Physical Activity and Sports Science and the Gynaecology and Obstetrics Unit of Hospital Severo Ochoa in Madrid.

The second and third trimester of pregnancy got the most attention from the researchers; the embryos were analyzed using multiple methods for the effect the ongoing workouts had on the weight and size of the babies.

It was found that mothers’ constant exercising had no negative effect on the body size and other health parameters of their fetuses which displayed a close similarity to those in the group of women who weren’t engaged in physical activity during pregnancy.

Thus disposing of the superstitious fear of a probable harm to the baby, the study accentuates the health benefits of a physically-active lifestyle even during the last stages of pregnancy.

Source of the image: sxc.hu/profile/hamletnc.