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Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia

Background Exercise during pregnancy helps to promote health benefits for both the mother and fetus. One of the concerns among Saudi pregnant women is physical inactivity. The objective of this study was to assess females' knowledge, beliefs, and practices toward exercise during pregnancy in Sa...

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Autores principales: Gari, Abdulrahim M, Aldharman, Sarah S, Alalawi, Wedad O, Alhashmi Alamer, Ethar H, Alnashri, Aeshah A, Bomouzah, Fatimah A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9681717/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36426315
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30672
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author Gari, Abdulrahim M
Aldharman, Sarah S
Alalawi, Wedad O
Alhashmi Alamer, Ethar H
Alnashri, Aeshah A
Bomouzah, Fatimah A
author_facet Gari, Abdulrahim M
Aldharman, Sarah S
Alalawi, Wedad O
Alhashmi Alamer, Ethar H
Alnashri, Aeshah A
Bomouzah, Fatimah A
author_sort Gari, Abdulrahim M
collection PubMed
description Background Exercise during pregnancy helps to promote health benefits for both the mother and fetus. One of the concerns among Saudi pregnant women is physical inactivity. The objective of this study was to assess females' knowledge, beliefs, and practices toward exercise during pregnancy in Saudi Arabia. Also, we investigated the most common barriers to exercising during pregnancy. Methods The study was a cross-sectional study that included all Saudi females aged 18 years and above and excluded non-Saudi females and those aged less than 18 years. A self-administered survey was distributed on social media platforms. The collected data were coded and analyzed using SPSS version 23 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results A total of 1207 participants were enrolled in the study. In regards to general knowledge and awareness levels, 1002 (83%) participants had a high level of knowledge and awareness, and 205 (17%) had a low level of knowledge and awareness. Exercise during pregnancy is essential was agreed on by 853 (70.7%) participants. The most reported sources of information on prenatal exercise were found to be websites, as reported by 56.7% of the participants. About 42.4% of the participants were sometimes exercising during pregnancy. The most common type of antenatal exercise was found to be walking, as mentioned by 83.5% of the participants. The most commonly reported barrier to practicing antenatal exercises was found to be fatigue, as reported by 53.9% of the participants, and lack of time. Age was found to be significantly associated with the level of beliefs, awareness, and knowledge regarding antenatal care. A statistically significant association was found between marital status and level of beliefs, awareness, and knowledge regarding antenatal care with married participants tending to be having a higher level of knowledge and awareness compared to other groups. Occupation and level of beliefs, awareness, and knowledge regarding antenatal care were found to be significantly associated. Conclusion We found good general knowledge and awareness levels regarding exercise during pregnancy. Beliefs toward exercise during pregnancy were below average. Future studies on how to promote regular exercise during pregnancy are recommended.
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spelling pubmed-96817172022-11-23 Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia Gari, Abdulrahim M Aldharman, Sarah S Alalawi, Wedad O Alhashmi Alamer, Ethar H Alnashri, Aeshah A Bomouzah, Fatimah A Cureus Obstetrics/Gynecology Background Exercise during pregnancy helps to promote health benefits for both the mother and fetus. One of the concerns among Saudi pregnant women is physical inactivity. The objective of this study was to assess females' knowledge, beliefs, and practices toward exercise during pregnancy in Saudi Arabia. Also, we investigated the most common barriers to exercising during pregnancy. Methods The study was a cross-sectional study that included all Saudi females aged 18 years and above and excluded non-Saudi females and those aged less than 18 years. A self-administered survey was distributed on social media platforms. The collected data were coded and analyzed using SPSS version 23 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results A total of 1207 participants were enrolled in the study. In regards to general knowledge and awareness levels, 1002 (83%) participants had a high level of knowledge and awareness, and 205 (17%) had a low level of knowledge and awareness. Exercise during pregnancy is essential was agreed on by 853 (70.7%) participants. The most reported sources of information on prenatal exercise were found to be websites, as reported by 56.7% of the participants. About 42.4% of the participants were sometimes exercising during pregnancy. The most common type of antenatal exercise was found to be walking, as mentioned by 83.5% of the participants. The most commonly reported barrier to practicing antenatal exercises was found to be fatigue, as reported by 53.9% of the participants, and lack of time. Age was found to be significantly associated with the level of beliefs, awareness, and knowledge regarding antenatal care. A statistically significant association was found between marital status and level of beliefs, awareness, and knowledge regarding antenatal care with married participants tending to be having a higher level of knowledge and awareness compared to other groups. Occupation and level of beliefs, awareness, and knowledge regarding antenatal care were found to be significantly associated. Conclusion We found good general knowledge and awareness levels regarding exercise during pregnancy. Beliefs toward exercise during pregnancy were below average. Future studies on how to promote regular exercise during pregnancy are recommended. Cureus 2022-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9681717/ /pubmed/36426315 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30672 Text en Copyright © 2022, Gari et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Obstetrics/Gynecology
Gari, Abdulrahim M
Aldharman, Sarah S
Alalawi, Wedad O
Alhashmi Alamer, Ethar H
Alnashri, Aeshah A
Bomouzah, Fatimah A
Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia
title Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia
title_full Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia
title_short Exercise During Pregnancy: Knowledge and Beliefs Among Females in Saudi Arabia
title_sort exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs among females in saudi arabia
topic Obstetrics/Gynecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9681717/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36426315
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30672
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