A doctor with a patient
© AFP/File WOJTEK TOLYZApril 7, 2008 (Sawf News) - Studies have shown that exercise has a positive effect on mothers-to-be, and no detrimental impact on their developing offspring. A new study further extends the knowledge of research in this area and has found that not only do women benefit from exercise in pregnancy, but their fetuses do too.
The researchers hypothesized that maternal exercise during pregnancy can have a beneficial effect on fetal cardiac programming by reducing fetal heart rate and increasing heart rate variability. As a result, a key component of the research involved magnetocardiography (MCG), the magnetic correlate of an electrocardiogram (ECG). MCG is a safe, non-invasive method to record the magnetic field surrounding the electrical currents generated by the fetal heart and nervous system. In addition to measures of heart rate and variability, the MCG allows for the study of the cardiac waveforms to measure of cardiac time intervals.
The study found:
* there were significantly lower heart rates among fetuses that had been exposed to maternal exercise. The heart rates among non-exposed fetuses were higher, regardless of the fetal activity or the gestational age.
* at each stage of gestation the differences between the fetal heart rates of the two groups were statistically significant (p<0.05 using a t-test with equal variances).
* the analysis of short- and long-term heart variability at 28, 32 and 36 weeks of gestation in exercise-exposed vs. non-exercise-exposed fetuses were statistically different at 32 wks. This trend is still seen at 36 wks, however it is not significant.
According to Dr. May, “This study suggests that a mother who exercises may not only be imparting health benefits to her own heart, but to her developing baby’s heart as well.”
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