Maternal Responses to Aerobic Exercise in Pregnancy

Abstract

Exercise is one of the most physiologically challenging stressors requiring the coordination of metabolic, respiratory, and cardiovascular responses to meet increased energy requirements of the working muscle. During pregnancy, all women without contraindication are encouraged to exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. Pregnancy itself is associated with profound physiological adaptations to the maternal cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic systems, which serve to support the needs of the growing fetus. Therefore the physiological adaptations to exercise during pregnancy are more pronounced and critically important. This review provides an overview of our current understanding of the physiological adaptations to acute prenatal exercise.

Functional hemodynamic testing in pregnancy: recommendations of the International Working Group on Maternal Hemodynamics

“…Maternal cardiac function is maintained during submaximal exercise in healthy pregnant women, and responses are similar to those observed in healthy adults. In line with research from other populations in the prediction of CVD, it is possible that altered CV response to aerobic exercise during pregnancy may indicate underlying dysfunction that may predict the development of CV complications during pregnancy.…”

Maternal cardioautonomic responses during and following exercise throughout pregnancy

“…Further, due to the nature of the protocol, exercise-related assessment of the measures was limited to the light exercise portion of the protocol before the incremental test, as well as the active recovery period following the test. The cardiovascular responses to exercise during pregnancy have been reviewed previously (Davenport et al 2016), and our focus was to understand post-exercise recovery during pregnancy. An alternative would have been to evaluate a resting recovery period following the incremental exercise test to more directly compare to initial resting values.…”

“…Pregnancy is a physiological stressor which is associated with significant adaptations to the cardioautonomic nervous system (Davenport et al 2016;Usselman et al 2015). As pregnancy progresses, the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity shifts towards lower parasympathetic control.…”

“…During pregnancy, despite increases in both heart rate and stroke volume, systemic vasodilation ultimately leads to a decrease in total peripheral resistance and mean arterial pressure (Davenport et al 2016). Along with a decrease in total peripheral resistance, pregnant women have blunted cardioautonomic control at rest, which may lead to an increased risk of hypotension, pre-syncope or fainting during and following exercise.…”

“…Along with a decrease in total peripheral resistance, pregnant women have blunted cardioautonomic control at rest, which may lead to an increased risk of hypotension, pre-syncope or fainting during and following exercise. While the cardiovascular responses to exercise during pregnancy have been broadly reviewed previous (Davenport et al 2016), the cardioautonomic control of pregnant women during and following exercise throughout gestation remains unclear.…”