Physical activity during pregnancy and its relationship with gestational weight gain.
Enrique Ramón-Arbués, José Manuel Granada-López, Blanca Martínez-Abadía and 3 others
PMID 36995855WHAT IT FOUND
Pregnant women's activity fell across pregnancy except playful activity; low activity was linked to higher weekly weight gain only in the third trimester, while pre-gestational BMI was the factor most closely related to weight gain.
Key findings
01Total reported activity time decreased from 105.69 minutes/day in the first trimester to 65.78 minutes/day in the third, while playful activity increased.
02Low physical activity was associated with higher weekly weight gain only in the third trimester; high and average activity groups gained 169 and 99 grams less per week.
03Pre-gestational BMI was the factor most closely related to weekly weight gain in each trimester, with an inverse association, and the third-trimester model explained 25% of weight gain.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 151 of 220 recruited women completed the study; exclusions included miscarriage, pregnancy complications and lost contact. Physical activity was assessed by recall of the last seven days, so memory bias is possible. Weight was self-reported rather than measured. Diet, first trimester nausea and glucose tolerance results were not analysed, so other factors may explain the association. The study is observational, so it cannot show that low activity caused higher weight gain. The regression models explained only 7%, 5% and 25% of weekly weight gain across the trimesters.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict-of-interest statement is included in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that increasing physical activity will reduce gestational weight gain. This observational study found an association only in the third trimester, and pre-gestational BMI was the strongest weight-gain factor.