Exercise During Pregnancy

Mothers often increase their focus on health during pregnancy, given the implications for offspring and their own well-being. Habitual exercise is principal to the maintenance of health, and the adoption or continuation of habitual maternal exercise during pregnancy is becoming increasingly popular. Still, there is a dearth of knowledge on the health benefits across multiple physiological and psychosocial systems, such that it limits the precision of evidence-based recommendations for exercise during pregnancy. [1.1][1.2]A wide range of modalities and doses of exercise have been deemed safe during pregnancy, and more recent research is beginning to show that exercise during pregnancy elicits various systemic health benefits for mother and offspring. However, in order to provide more rigorous conclusions, more attention to this growing application of exercise science is necessary.

As mothers are increasingly interested in the adoption or continuation of habitual exercise during pregnancy, much valuable caution is taken in determining the specifics of their exercise amounts and modalities. There also remains confusion among the public, the practitioners, and sometimes the researchers alike, on which physiological systems benefit from these different exercise practices, and whether they are sole to the mother, or also extend to offspring. An invigorated push to expand the literature on exercise during pregnancy is therefore crucial. The goal of this Research Topic is to grow the literature on the particular impacts of specific maternal exercise strategies during pregnancy, with an emphasis on both the health of offspring, and mother.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the effects of exercise during pregnancy on:
o Maternal Cardiometabolic Health
o Infant Cardiometabolic Health
o Pregnancy Complications
o Maternal Mental Health
o Maternal Quality of Life and Well-being
o Health in Underserved Populations
o Postpartum Health & Fitness

The collection will include articles from: OB/GYN, maternal-fetal medicine, women's health, midwifery, nursing (maternal-child health), physical therapy, kinesiology, sports medicine, biomechanics, and exercise physiology.