Pregnancy Exercise Could Prevent Cot Death
By now it’s pretty old news that exercise is beneficial for pregnancy but a new study by the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences has some evidence to suggest that exercising regularly during your pregnancy could reduce the risk of cot death for your developing baby.
The study wanted to find if cardiovascular and respiratory functions were improved in the foetus as a result of exposure to maternal exercise. In particular they were looking for increased “breathing movements” in the foetuses of mothers who exercised during pregnancy as compared with those who did no exercise during pregnancy.
Now obviously your baby doesn’t actually “breathe” whilst he’s snuggled up in your belly as he gets everything he needs through the umbilical cord, but he does practice breathing, which indicates how well his respiratory and nervous system are developing.
What they found was that the breathing movement and the nervous system was better developed in babies of mothers who exercised during pregnancy than those who didn’t.
Dr Linda May explained, that understanding more about how to improve the development of babies’ nervous system could help to learn more about the causes of cot death.
” Some researchers think it has to do with something being wrong in the central nervous system, which affects respiration. Babies aren’t able to wake up and breath for themselves if they need to.”
So with this study showing that babies of mothers who exercise during pregnancy have a more mature and developed respiratory system, it suggests that these babies will be less likely to suffer from cot death after birth.
How Much Exercise Is Enough?
So what do you really need to do to improve your baby’s nervous system and development? Well in my pregnancy fitness coaching program I advocate moving every day but doing short-sharp-burst training sessions for 15 minutes on 6 days of the week.
15 minutes is long enough to give you a really good pregnancy workout as long as you know how to workout and how to monitor the intensity of your pregnancy exercise routine.
You should be focussing on whole body resistance based exercises like squats and deadlifts which use all 600 odd muscles in the body, as well as targeting the key pregnancy support muscles like the bottom, the midback and the core.
For a great 4 week pregnancy workout you can use to get you in shape over the next 4 weeks check out my facebook page and don’t forget to become a fan!
