French researchers champion benefit of exercise during pregnancy
Two year study begins to find best techniques
Pregmove focuses on strengthening and conditioning
CHU de Clermont-Ferrand
A new study is trying to determine the best way to encourage women to exercise consistently during their pregnancy.
Pregmove is taking place at the CHU Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme) over the next two years.
“We already knew that exercise had a lot of benefits for the future baby and the mother, both during pregnancy and after the birth,” said Chloé Barasinki, 36, a midwife and researcher at the teaching hospital.
“There is a significant impact on health, in preventing illnesses and improving general health," she said.
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Exercise in pregnancy
“This has been noticed across the world, but despite this we have found that mothers struggle to meet the recommended amount of weekly exercise – around 150 to 180 minutes a week.”
Pregnant women can be nervous about exercising for many different reasons.
Firstly, the change in body shape can make people hesitant to exercise as they are used to, namely for fear of falling.
Many women are also scared of doing something that may be bad for the baby, while time constraints and lack of tailored exercise classes are other obstacles.
“That is where Pregmove came in. We offer schedules and programmes to pregnant women and adapted exercises at different points of their pregnancy, with a trained coach. We then measure which programme is the most successful with pregnant women, which is to say which encourages them to do the most sport,” said Dr Barasinki.
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Effective pregnancy exercise
“Based on the results, the idea is to give pregnant women access to an effective exercise programme so they can reap the benefits for themselves and their baby.”
The exercises included in the study consist of strengthening and conditioning training and stretching, to build up stamina and muscle, rather than being orientated towards a specific sport.
The measure of its success will be based on how long pregnant women exercise each week, and which groups exercise the most.
There are four groups in the Pregmove study.
A focus group is told of the benefits of exercising but not offered any actual sessions.
The three other groups are offered sessions: the first has three a week in person; the second has three a week which can be done remotely; and the last group gets one in-person session and two remote sessions.
The study is open to any pregnant women in Clermont-Ferrand and is completely free.
“This is an important part of the study too, as we will see whether the benefits of exercise will outweigh the costs for the healthcare system,” said Dr Barasinki.
Pregmove started in September but is open for two years.
