Patterns of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep across pregnancy before and during two COVID pandemic years.
Andrea C Kozai, Melissa A Jones, Jaclyn D Borrowman and 5 others
PMID 39721225WHAT IT FOUND
Pregnant people in the pandemic were less active and more sedentary than before, and did not return to old patterns over two years.
Ask about daily movement, sitting, and sleep, especially late pregnancy.
Key findings
01Pregnant participants in the pre-COVID cohort accumulated 193-228 minutes/week of moderate-to-vigorous activity, compared with 130-179 minutes/week in the COVID-era cohort, and this difference was significant in each trimester.
02Pre-COVID participants had 0.9-1.23 hours/day less sedentary time and 0.8 hours/day less sleep than COVID-era participants, and sleep differences were significant only in the third trimester.
03Across two pandemic years, slopes for activity and sleep were not significantly different from zero in any trimester.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was an observational comparison of two cohorts, so it cannot prove that the pandemic caused the behaviour differences. Pregnancy outcomes were not analysed, so the study does not show whether these activity, sedentary or sleep patterns led to adverse maternal or fetal outcomes. Participants were largely non-Hispanic white and from a single geographic area, so results may not apply to other racial, ethnic or geographic groups. Sleep duration was self-reported, and self-reported sleep in pregnancy is only modestly correlated with objective sleep measures. The pre-COVID cohort had to attend all visits in person, while many COVID-era participants attended remotely, which may have made the pre-COVID group more active; sensitivity analyses still found lower activity in COVID-era participants who attended in person. Annual income differed between cohorts, and residual confounding from unmeasured factors cannot be excluded.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that pandemic-era behaviour caused adverse pregnancy outcomes. The study did not analyse pregnancy outcomes, and its observational design cannot prove cause.