Influence of Supervised Maternal Aerobic Exercise during Pregnancy on 1-Month-Old Neonatal Cardiac Function and Outflow: A Pilot Study

Purpose: The objective of this study is to assess the effects of supervised, recommended levels of prenatal aerobic exercise on 1-month-old infant cardiac function.Methods: Eligible pregnant women were randomly assigned to either an aerobic exercise group that participated in 150 min of supervised, moderate-intensity (40% to 59% VO2peak, 12 to 14 on Borg rating of perceived exertion) aerobic exercise per week for 24 wk or more or a nonexercising group that consisted of 150 min center dot wk(-1) of relaxation techniques. One-month-old infant echocardiogram was performed to assess infant cardiac function, including heart rate (HR), left-ventricular stroke volume, cardiac output, cardiac index, ejection fraction, fractional shortening, and velocity time integral at the aortic valve. Pearson correlation analyses and linear regression models were performed.Results: Prenatal aerobic exercise was negatively correlated with infant resting HR (r = -0.311, P = 0.02). Similarly, when controlling for infant sex and activity state, exercise level/volume (beta = -0.316; 95% CI, -0.029 to -0.002; P = 0.02) predicted resting infant HR (R-2 = 0.18, P = 0.02). In infants of overweight/obese women, infants of aerobic exercisers had increased fractional shortening (P = 0.03). In addition, infant ventricular ejection fraction was correlated with maternal exercise attendance (r = 0.418, P = 0.03) as well as a trend for exercise level (r = 0.351, P = 0.08). Similarly, the only significant regression model for infants of overweight/obese women controls infant activity state (beta = -0.444; 95% CI, -0.05 to -0.01; P = 0.006) and maternal exercise level (beta = 0.492; 95% CI, 5.46-28.74; P = 0.01) predicting infant resting HR (F = 5.79, R-2 = 0.40, P = 0.003).Conclusions The findings of this study demonstrate that women participating in exercise in the second and third trimesters of their pregnancy may have infants with increased cardiac function at 1 month of age. Importantly, the cardiac function effects were further augmented for infants born to overweight/obese women.