Pregnant Women Are Not Sweating Enough
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The exercise message is apparently not getting through to expectant mothers.
Just 6% of pregnant women work out for at least 30 minutes several times a week and only one in 10 pregnant women engage in moderate exercise weekly, according to survey results reported in the November issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Moreover, exercise seems to be losing its appeal. The proportion of pregnant women who worked out at least three times as week declined to 6% in 2000 from 9% in 1994. Non-pregnant women are also exercising less—14% in 2000, which is down from 17% in 1996.
The data emerged from an analysis by Terry Leet, Ph.D., of Saint Louis University and colleagues of responses from 6,538 pregnant women and 143,731 non-pregnant women to telephone surveys conducted by the CDC in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2000.
“This study largely illustrates that there appears to be a discrepancy between the professional recommendations for physical activity during pregnancy and what women have actually been doing,” the authors said.
Obstetricians, the authors said, “should focus on encouraging continued physical activity during pregnancy among those already active and should specifically target physical activity promotion among those women performing irregular or no activity.”
In general, age, lower-socioeconomic status, and current smoking were all markers for a sedentary lifestyle during pregnancy.
Among women who exercised, walking was the most popular activity with 45% of pregnant women and 52% of non-pregnant women reporting that they walked regularly.
Non-pregnant women consistently outperformed the pregnant women in all exercise categories assessed. They were more likely to do an aerobics workout (14% versus 8% P<0.001) and more likely to be regular runners or joggers (7% versus 2%, P<0.001).
The CDC’s periodic Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System queried women aged 18 to 44 about healthy lifestyle factors such as exercise and risk factors such as smoking. Women were also categorized by race, income and education.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that “pregnant women should be encouraged to engage in regular, moderate intensity physical activity to continue to derive the same associated health benefits during their pregnancies as they did prior to pregnancy.” That means at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise-such as a brisk walk-daily.
Exceptions are patients with a history of pregnancy complications, especially women considered at high risk for preterm labor or fetal growth restriction.
Nonetheless, Yvonne S. Thornton, M.D., of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said physicians have been hesitant to urge pregnant patients to exercise.
“There’s a little holdover from the paternalistic, archaic way of treating (pregnant) patients,” she said. The notion that pregnancy is a time of staying off your feet, not hopping onto the treadmill persists, she added.
The pregnancy subgroups needing exercise interventions are the same groups who aren’t getting enough exercise when they’re not pregnant, she added. “The fact is if you take pregnancy out, these people don’t exercise anyway. We’re talking about people who are totally sedentary, who have a cultural bent to not do exercise and then become pregnant.”
The CDC survey—Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System—queried women aged 18 to 44 about lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet and smoking. Women are also categorized by race, income and education.
Sixty-seven percent of the pregnant women and 68% of the non-pregnant women were non-Hispanic white, more than half had at least 12 years of education, and 60% from each group had an annual income of less than $50,000.
More pregnant women were homemakers compared with non-pregnant women (25% versus. 15%, respectively). Seventy-two percent of the pregnant women were married compared with 55% of the non-pregnant women. Smoking was twice as common among the non-pregnant women as among the pregnant women, 25% versus 12%.
Pregnant women meeting the moderate or vigorous physical activity recommendations were more likely to be younger, non-Hispanic white, more educated, not married, non-smokers, and to have higher incomes.
Finally, the researchers report that the number of women who regularly exercise declined from 1994 when 9% of pregnant women and 17% of non-pregnant women said they engaged in vigorous exercise such as 20 minutes of aerobics at least three times a week. By 2000 only 6% of pregnant women and 14% of non-pregnant women were working out three times or more weekly.
One limitation pointed out by the authors is that ACOG’s support for the CDC’s recommendation of regular physical activity, however, was not published until 2002, which follows the data collection for this study. The older restrictive guidelines may have contributed to reductions in habitual activity during pregnancy.
Source: Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
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