Few Women Get Enough Exercise During Pregnancy
Fewer than 1 in 4 pregnant women meet physical activity guidelines set by doctors and health officials, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study.
Guidelines set by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2002 recommend pregnant women get 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily, or on most days, if they have no medical or obstetric complications. Similar guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2008 suggest pregnant women get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity per week.
“Physical activity during pregnancy has a number of health benefits,” said Kelly Evenson, Ph.D., research associate professor of epidemiology in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and author of the new study. “It may help prevent gestational diabetes, support healthy gestational weight gain and improve mental health.”
According to the study, women in their first trimester were more likely to meet the physical activity recommendations than those in more advanced stages of their pregnancy, Evenson said. Women with health insurance and non-Hispanic whites were more likely to meet the guidelines than others. Walking was the most common leisure time physical activity reported. Read more
Sugary Cola Drinks Linked For First Time To Higher Risk Of Gestational Diabetes
Researchers from LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, have found for the first time that drinking more than 5 servings of sugar- sweetened cola a week prior to pregnancy appears to significantly elevate the risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy. Liwei Chen, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health, is the lead author of the paper, A Prospective Study of Pre-Gravid Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption and the Risk of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, that will be published in the December 2009 issue of Diabetes Care and is available online now at http://diabetes.org/diabetescare.
The research team studied a group of 13,475 women from the Nurses’ Health Study II. During 10 years of follow-up, 860 incident GDM cases were identified. After adjustment for known risk factors for GDM including age, family history of diabetes, parity, physical activity, smoking status, sugar-sweetened beverage intake, alcohol intake, prepregnancy BMI, and Western dietary pattern, intake of sugar-sweetened cola was positively associated with the risk of GDM. No significant association was found for other sugar-sweetened beverages or diet beverages.
“Compared with women who consumed less than 1 serving per month, those who consumed more than 5 servings per week of sugar-sweetened cola had a 22% greater GDM risk,” notes Dr. Chen. Read more