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Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review

Before and during pregnancy, women often aim to improve their lifestyle so as to provide a healthier environment for their developing child. It remains unresolved, however, as to whether physical activity (PA) during pregnancy poses a possible risk or whether it might even have beneficial effects on...

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Autores principales: Bauer, Ilena, Hartkopf, Julia, Kullmann, Stephanie, Schleger, Franziska, Hallschmid, Manfred, Pauluschke-Fröhlich, Jan, Fritsche, Andreas, Preissl, Hubert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7078670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32206341
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2019-000658
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author Bauer, Ilena
Hartkopf, Julia
Kullmann, Stephanie
Schleger, Franziska
Hallschmid, Manfred
Pauluschke-Fröhlich, Jan
Fritsche, Andreas
Preissl, Hubert
author_facet Bauer, Ilena
Hartkopf, Julia
Kullmann, Stephanie
Schleger, Franziska
Hallschmid, Manfred
Pauluschke-Fröhlich, Jan
Fritsche, Andreas
Preissl, Hubert
author_sort Bauer, Ilena
collection PubMed
description Before and during pregnancy, women often aim to improve their lifestyle so as to provide a healthier environment for their developing child. It remains unresolved, however, as to whether physical activity (PA) during pregnancy poses a possible risk or whether it might even have beneficial effects on the developing child. There is increasing evidence that PA during pregnancy is indeed beneficial to maternal physiological and psychological health and that it is generally not detrimental to the fetal cardiovascular system and neuronal function in the developing child. This also led to international recommendations for PAs during pregnancy. In the current review, we aimed to comprehensively assess the evidence of beneficial and harmful effects of maternal PA, including high-performance sports, on fetal development. The different mental and body-based relaxation techniques presented here are frequently performed during pregnancy. We found a considerable number of studies addressing these issues. In general, neither low key, moderate maternal PA nor relaxation techniques were observed to have a harmful effect on the developing child. However, we identified some forms of PA which could have at least a transient unfavourable effect. Notably, the literature currently available does not provide enough evidence to enable us to make a general conclusive statement on this subject. This is due to the lack of longitudinal studies on the metabolic and cognitive effects of regular PA during pregnancy and the wide diversity of methods used. In particular, the kind of PA investigated in each study differed from study to study.
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spelling pubmed-70786702020-03-23 Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review Bauer, Ilena Hartkopf, Julia Kullmann, Stephanie Schleger, Franziska Hallschmid, Manfred Pauluschke-Fröhlich, Jan Fritsche, Andreas Preissl, Hubert BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med Review Before and during pregnancy, women often aim to improve their lifestyle so as to provide a healthier environment for their developing child. It remains unresolved, however, as to whether physical activity (PA) during pregnancy poses a possible risk or whether it might even have beneficial effects on the developing child. There is increasing evidence that PA during pregnancy is indeed beneficial to maternal physiological and psychological health and that it is generally not detrimental to the fetal cardiovascular system and neuronal function in the developing child. This also led to international recommendations for PAs during pregnancy. In the current review, we aimed to comprehensively assess the evidence of beneficial and harmful effects of maternal PA, including high-performance sports, on fetal development. The different mental and body-based relaxation techniques presented here are frequently performed during pregnancy. We found a considerable number of studies addressing these issues. In general, neither low key, moderate maternal PA nor relaxation techniques were observed to have a harmful effect on the developing child. However, we identified some forms of PA which could have at least a transient unfavourable effect. Notably, the literature currently available does not provide enough evidence to enable us to make a general conclusive statement on this subject. This is due to the lack of longitudinal studies on the metabolic and cognitive effects of regular PA during pregnancy and the wide diversity of methods used. In particular, the kind of PA investigated in each study differed from study to study. BMJ Publishing Group 2020-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7078670/ /pubmed/32206341 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2019-000658 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Review
Bauer, Ilena
Hartkopf, Julia
Kullmann, Stephanie
Schleger, Franziska
Hallschmid, Manfred
Pauluschke-Fröhlich, Jan
Fritsche, Andreas
Preissl, Hubert
Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
title Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
title_full Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
title_fullStr Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
title_full_unstemmed Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
title_short Spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
title_sort spotlight on the fetus: how physical activity during pregnancy influences fetal health: a narrative review
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7078670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32206341
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2019-000658
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