Active Pregnancy Benefits Baby's Heart

It's been known for a long time that exercising during pregnancy is beneficial for moms.

It prevents excessive weight gain, wards off gestational diabetes, reduces the need for instrument interventions during delivery, makes it easier to return to pre-pregnancy weight and reduces back pain, leg cramps, hemorrhoids... the list goes on.

And while fit mom = fit baby may seem logical, and has scientific validity in the first trimester - not much research has been done into long-term benefits for the babies' cardiovascular health.

A 2008 pilot study conducted by Linda May and her collaborators at the Kansas City University of Medicine collected noninvasive fetal heart measurements from 66 fetuses when their mothers reached 28, 32 and 36 weeks of a typical 40-week pregnancy. Some of the mothers engaged in moderate to vigorous aerobic activity for 30 minutes at least three times a week; others didn't exercise.

May and her team found that pregnant women who exercised at least 30 minutes three times a week had fetuses with lower heart rates (a sign of heart health) during the final weeks of development.

At 32 weeks, researchers started to see changes in heart response in the fetuses of the exercising moms. By 36 weeks, they noted what May calls a "big, significant change" -- lower heart rate and increased heart rate variability (beat-to-beat fluctuations in the rhythm of the heart - an indirect measure of heart health.)

The study results are being presented at the Experimental Biology 2011 annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

This is an encouraging study that perhaps confirms what many have suspected. Still it does provided some extra incentive to get moving and keep moving throughout the pregnancy. Sadly enough, our own health doesn't even provide enough incentive to get active. Perhaps studies like this will help spark some extra motivation in mothers-to-be.