Physical activity during pregnancy and baby lung development

It turns out that the physical activity of a pregnant woman has a positive effect on the development of the lungs in a newborn.

Data from such a study were presented at the virtual European Respiratory Society International Congress. The study involved 814 children.

All children were divided into two groups: those whose mothers were engaged in physical activity during pregnancy, and those whose mothers were inactive during pregnancy.

It turned out that 8.6% of babies with low lung function (hypofunction) were born from inactive mothers, while only 4.2% of newborns in the group of active mothers had hypofunction of the lungs 🤷🏻‍♀️

It seems that the difference is not extremely large, but still a lot of work has been done in assessing the lifestyle of mothers and the health of their offspring.

Age, socioeconomic status, frequency, and duration of physical activity were considered.

The disadvantage of the study was the lack of an accurate definition of the state of hypofunction of the lungs, but nevertheless, certain parameters of lung function were determined in all babies.

Another disadvantage was the short-term observation of children, but the researchers plan to observe children up to 10 years of age, given the state of their pulmonary system, the occurrence of asthma, allergies, and other possible childhood diseases.

❗️Undoubtedly, pregnancy is not a disease, and therefore does not require bed rest and limitation of physical activity in most cases. It would be great if doctors were promoting an active lifestyle.