The Effects of physical activity on the women's well-being during the pregnancy and delivery

Abstract

Background: Physical exercise has a direct impact on the women's well-being, comfort, physiological adaptation during pregnancy and delivery. The aim: To evaluate the possible influence of physical exercise before conception and during pregnancy on the women's subjective well-being during pregnancy and delivery. Materials and methods: An original questionnaire about sports experiences before and during pregnancy was created. The questionnaire was distributed in a third-level hospital, the Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics, in the Clinic of Obstetrics and Gynecology for women after delivery. Altogether 108 women participated in the study. For data comparison, women were divided into two groups according to physical activity experience: active and inactive before and during pregnancy. Research data were systematized using “Excel Microsoft 365”, data analysis was performed using “IBM; SPSS 27”. The permission of the Bioethics Center of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences was granted, no. BEC-MF-301 (2022-03-07). Results: Before pregnancy 1,9% (n = 2) of women did sports professionally, 40,7% (n = 44) were physically active, 57,4% (n = 63) did not do sports. During pregnancy 41,7% (n = 45) exercised regularly, 58,3% (n = 63) did not. A large proportion of women (82,2 %) who were physically active during pregnancy rated their state of well-being during pregnancy as “good” or better in comparison of women who did not exercise (58,7 %, p = 0,028). Half of women (55,5 %) who were physically inactive during pregnancy evaluated their state of well-being during delivery just as “moderate” and below in comparison to physically active women (35,5 %, p = 0,033). Conclusions: Physical activity during pregnancy significantly improves women's subjective wellbeing during pregnancy and delivery, though about a half of participants were not physically active neither before or during the pregnancy.