EFFECT OF PRENATAL EXERCISE ON THE PHYSICAL READINESS OF PREGNANT WOMEN IN THE THIRD TRIMESTER

Abstract

Physical readiness in late pregnancy is relevant to maternal
adaptation, mobility, functional capacity, and preparation
for childbirth. Prenatal exercise is generally recommended
for uncomplicated pregnancy, although the magnitude of
change in physical readiness depends on exercise content,
adherence, baseline condition, and study design. Objective
to examine the change in physical readiness scores before
and after prenatal exercise among women in the third
trimester using the supplied research dataset. A
quantitative one-group pretest–posttest analysis was
conducted on 30 pregnant women in the third trimester.
The dataset contained age, gestational age, parity, and
physical-readiness scores before and after the intervention.
Paired t-test was used after checking normality of the
paired differences with the Shapiro–Wilk test. The mean
difference, 95% confidence interval, and standardized
within-person effect size were also calculated. Participants
were 22–35 years old and 29–35 weeks pregnant; 15 were
primiparous and 15 multiparous. Mean readiness increased
from 47.67 ± 5.01 at pretest to 79.13 ± 5.89 at posttest. The
mean increase was 31.47 points (95% CI 30.95–31.98). The
paired differences were approximately normally distributed
(Shapiro–Wilk W=0.940; p=0.091). The paired t-test showed
a statistically significant pre–post difference (t(29)=124.62;
p<0.001).The results demonstrates a marked improvement
in physical-readiness scores after prenatal exercise.