International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Women who exercise when pregnant can reduce the risk of their children suffering from diseases like Alzheimer's later in life, new maternal and newborn health research has shown.

A study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal used mice bred to suffer from a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's to test the benefits of prenatal workouts on offspring.

Mice designed to develop the condition whose mothers exercised when pregnant were healthier as they aged compared with those whose mothers were sedentary, with fewer and smaller sized beta-amyloid plaques, a more functional vascular network and less inflammation and oxidative stress.

One of the researchers involved in the investigation, Kathy Keyvani of the Institute of Pathology and Neuropathology at the University Hospital Essen in Germany, said: “Epigenetic alterations ... provide a most probable mechanism by which mothers could have transferred their own behavioral experience to their progeny."

Women may also benefit their children’s health by avoiding low-fat yoghurt during pregnancy, as a recent study conducted by Ekaterina Maslova of the Harvard School of Public Health in the US found mums-to-be who consumed the foodstuff were 1.6 times more likely to give birth to an infant who would develop asthma before the age of seven.

Posted by Carla MacKenzie