According to a new review of recent research, researchers found that pregnant women who are physically active may gain a little bit less weight than those who are not.
Researchers from Munich, Germany pooled the results of 12 studies and found that women who exercised while pregnant gained an average of 1.3 pounds less than women who didn’t.
Those results alone may not offer pregnant women much incentive to start exercising more, but there are other beneficial reasons to do it, said Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal who reviewed the study findings for Reuters Health.
Exercise can offer positive effects on mood and insulin sensitivity in people overall, and appears to have no negative effects on women during pregnancy, noted Kramer, who is scientific director of the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Exercise can also help women maintain their pre-pregnancy conditioning, Kramer added. “Women who have been physically active can continue, and women who haven’t can start,” he said. “But they shouldn’t expect major outcomes for them or their baby.”
Women who gain too much weight during pregnancy are at risk from a number of problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and labor complications. A recent study found that women who gained more weight during pregnancy had heavier babies, who in turn are themselves more likely to become obese adults, and may be more prone to cancer, allergies, and asthma.
Ina Streuling of the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and colleagues, investigating if exercise programs help women avoid problems from excessive weight gains, reviewed data from 12 studies that looked at the effect of an exercise intervention on women during pregnancy.
The studies collectively looked at more than 1,000 women, some of whom were randomly assigned to follow exercise programs. The programs encouraged women to exercise three times per week, up to one hour of aerobics, running, biking or muscle strengthening, starting in their first or second trimester.
The studies did not consistently show that exercise was associated with less weight gain during pregnancy, but overall, the data trended in that direction, said Kramer, who was not involved in the review.
Also, some women lost more than the average of 1.3 pounds — more specifically those who were overweight or obese before pregnancy. “To prevent high (weight gain), pregnant women should be physically active,” Streuling noted in an e-mail to Reuters Health.
The team performed another analysis that included studies that combined physical activity and dietary counseling, and found women who followed this program gained almost three pounds less while pregnant.
It’s not very surprising that exercise alone would have only a small impact on weight gain in pregnancy, Kramer explained. What really matters is not only how much women work out, but also how much they eat. “If you do a lot of exercise, you’re going to get hungrier. So unless you cut down on what you eat, you’re not going to lose weight.”
Also, not all of the studies included in the review were of high quality, Streuling noted, and some women not assigned to the exercise regime may have been overall more active in their daily lives, which could also help explain why exercise appeared to have little effect on weight during pregnancy.
The findings of the review appear in the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
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