EXERCISE DURING PREGNANCY SAFETY

Report #6528 6/5/95

In 1958, The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommended that pregnant women restrict their exercising to fewer than 16 minutes at a time. Now, we know that women can exercise safely during pregnancy a long as their temperatures do not rise too high while they do it.

Jim Clapp of Case Western Reserve Medical School just presented a paper at the recent meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine that showed that children of women who exercised vigorously throughout their pregnancies suffered no harmful effects and were smarter than children of non-exercising mothers. If exercise during pregnancy is to harm babies, it should cause them to be smaller at birth. However, three years ago, Maureen Hatch of Columbia University showed that women who exercise during pregnancy have larger babies who tend to be healthier. A major concern about exercising during pregnancy is that high fever during the first month of pregnancy can cause brain and spinal cord damage, but these studies were on pregnant women whose high fevers were caused by infections. A woman's body temperature can rise above 101 degrees after 10 minutes of fast running on a warm day. It takes at least 12 minutes for body temperature to rise above 101 degrees in a hot tub. Pregnant women should check with their doctors, but the vast majority can exercise. The only concerns are that the pregnant uterus leans forward and can cause back pain during running in the last three months of pregnancy/ and banging the belly in sports, such as sky diving and kick boxing, can damage the baby.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News