As long as women do not get carried away exercising during pregnancy, it can be very beneficial to the fetus growing in the womb.
A good guide is that if you can carry on a conversation while exercising and still feel comfortable your baby will be the better for it.
Studying twenty six women, between twenty and thirty five years of age the research team from Kansas City University discovered that the baby’s nervous system and breathing movement was more developed if expectant mothers had been taking exercise.
The technique used was perfectly safe and involved measuring magnetic fields created by the activity of electricity of both fetal and maternal heart rates.
The exercising women were involved in a moderate level including running and vigorous walking, these and the less sedate subjects were checked between the 36th and 38th week of gestation.
The reason for the study was to determine if there would be any cardiovascular advantages for women in terms of exercise. The device used could pick up various movements of the fetus including sucking, hiccupping and breathing.
The head of the study, Dr Linda May was very positive about the results believing it to be a significant advancement in determining the reasons for cot deaths and other conditions that affect babies. It is early days but with more research a lot could be learned about the developing nervous system of the baby.
A spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agreed that it had been a very worthwhile study despite its size. Although they wanted to express caution that too much exercise could be potentially dangerous for the baby.
