Regular Exercise May Lower Risk Of Having Heavy Babies

Miami, FL (AHN) – Women who exercise regularly during pregnancy are significantly less likely to give birth to a child with excessive birth weight.

Norwegian researchers said in a new study that women who exercise regularly while they are pregnant are up to 28 percent less likely to have an excessively heavy child at birth.

The researchers studied 36,869 pregnant women who completed two questionnaires about exercise. They found that excessive birth weight, which is described as weight above the 90th percentile, was observed in 4,033 newborns. More than half of those pregnancies were by women giving birth to twins.

Women in the study who gave birth to children below 8.8 pounds said in the questionnaires that they worked out about three times a week.

The study is published in the Oct. 2009 journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

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