10 Ways Prenatal Exercise Benefits Your Baby
Curious how prenatal exercise benefits your baby? While pregnancy can make it tempting to skip workouts, staying active does more than help you feel better—it has powerful, lasting effects on your baby’s health. From better brain development to improved heart function, here are 10 ways exercising during pregnancy can give your little one a head start.
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Because of the physical changes and challenges that typically come with pregnancy, it can be tempting to not move your body more than you have to. But exercising during pregnancy can not only help you manage the physical demands of pregnancy better, it can impact your baby’s health in significant ways, now and later.
Sometimes all we need in order to do something hard is the right motivation. So here’s your motivation to exercise: 10 ways prenatal exercise benefits your baby.
1. Improved Placental Function
One of the most important organs in pregnancy is the placenta—it’s how your baby gets oxygen and nutrients. Exercise improves placental function by increasing blood flow and oxygen delivery, which means your baby is getting everything they need more efficiently.
2. Improved Organ Development
Strong evidence suggests that exercise during pregnancy improves development of your baby’s organs, like their lungs, heart, and brain. By moving your body, you’re increasing blood flow and oxygen levels, which boosts the growth and function of these vital organs.
Your baby’s body is working hard to grow, and prenatal exercise can give them a healthy environment and a head start on good development.
3. Promotes Healthy Weight Gain (Now and Later!)
Exercising during pregnancy directly impacts your baby’s birth weight and their long-term health. Research has demonstrated two uniquely related benefits of regular prenatal exercise and healthy weight gain for your baby.
Better Growth in the Womb
In a 2000 study, women who started exercising during pregnancy were more likely to have babies with a higher birth weight than women who did not exercise. This increase in birth weight is likely a result of improved blood and oxygen flow to the baby through the placenta, which exercise promotes, as we already covered.
In other words, exercise helps your baby grow well while in the womb.
Lower, Healthier Birth Weight
In another study by the same researchers in 2002, women who continued exercising throughout pregnancy (compared to those who reduced exercise after 20 weeks) had babies with lower birth weights but still within a healthy range.
While this may seem to contradict the first study, it actually highlights a key point: babies of moms who continued exercising were leaner, with more muscle mass and less fat, while still maintaining a healthy weight.
This lower fat mass is significant because excess fat is the main component of macrosomia.
So it’s not a contradiction—it’s just that exercise affects a baby’s growth in different ways, depending on when you start and if you keep exercising. Whether it makes babies a little bigger or a little smaller over all, the important thing is that your baby is healthier.
4. Improved Heart Function
Just as exercise strengthens your heart, it also helps your baby’s. Babies of moms who exercise tend to have lower resting heart rates, which suggests better heart health and a stronger cardiovascular system. Because of your exercise, his or her little heart is working more efficiently from the start!
5. Improved Neuromotor Skills
Babies of active moms often show better neuromotor skills, such as muscle control, coordination, and reflexes, right from birth. This means your baby may reach early developmental milestones earlier and easier, thanks to the positive impact of prenatal exercise on their brain and nervous system.
6. Increase in Amniotic Fluid Levels
Studies suggest that moms who exercise may have increased levels of amniotic fluid, which is vital for your baby’s development. Amniotic fluid cushions and protects your baby, while also aiding in lung and digestive system development. A higher level of fluid can offer extra protection and support for these critical processes, especially at the end of pregnancy.
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7. Better Attentiveness and Discipline
Some research has provided evidence that babies born to moms who exercised during pregnancy have better attentiveness and discipline as children. The theory is that exercise positively affects brain development, possibly leading to more focused and better-behaved kids later on.
8. Reduces Baby’s Risk of Chronic Disease
Exercise is one of the best ways to reduce your own risk of chronic disease, and this protective effect seems to extend to your baby. Babies of moms who exercise have a lower risk of developing obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular and nervous system issues later in life.
9. Improved Stress Tolerance and Brain Function
Your baby is constantly developing their ability to handle stress, even before birth. Studies have shown evidence that babies born to moms who exercised tend to have better stress tolerance.
In simple terms, this means they might handle the challenges of early life—like loud noises, bright lights, or changes in routine—better than babies of moms who didn’t exercise.
These babies also show signs of more advanced brain and behavioral development. This means babies of moms who exercise tend to have better brain growth, improved reflexes, learning, memory, and a stronger ability to interact with people and their surroundings.
10. Better Sleep Habits
Finally, evidence suggests that a mother’s regular exercise during pregnancy improves her baby’s sleep patterns, including how early they fall asleep at night and the overall quality of their sleep. Sleep is crucial because sufficient, quality sleep affects brain function and development.
This improvement may be because exercise can help a mother sleep better, and a baby’s sleep patterns are largely determined by their mother, both in the womb and in the newborn stage.
Additionally, exercise helps reduce inflammation in mothers, which may decrease the risk of developmental issues for their babies, contributing to healthier sleep habits overall.
Bonus Benefit: Less Chance of C-section
Before we wrap up, there’s one more important benefit to prenatal exercise that’s worth mentioning. Beyond the 10 ways exercise supports your baby’s health, staying active during pregnancy can also reduce your chances of getting a c-section—and that has big implications not just for you but also for your baby.
This benefit is related to healthy weight gain during pregnancy. While there’s no “right” amount of weight to gain during pregnancy, excessive weight gain does increase a woman’s risk of complications—including her chance of getting a c-section.
C-sections are potentially risky for babies because they miss out on the normal, healthy exposure to bacteria they would get if they were born vaginally. This exposure has lots of health benefits. It boosts their immune system, improves their gut health, and lowers their risk of asthma, allergies, and other health conditions.
Vaginal births also naturally clear out a baby’s airways, so babies born by c-section are more likely to struggle breathing.
Plus, babies born by c-section (and their mothers) experience less of a hormonal surge at birth than vaginal birthers do, which can affect a baby’s physical and mental health in multiple ways.
So, by exercising, you can reduce your chance of getting a c-section and thereby improve your baby’s chance of a healthy, happy start to life.
Conclusion: Remember the Benefits
Exercising during pregnancy has real, far-reaching benefits for you and your baby. So when you feel like moving your body is too hard, remember these benefits. You’re not just helping yourself—you’re giving your baby the best start possible.
That is always going to be worth it.
Until next time,
Allison
READ MORE:
Strong, Nourished, Empowered—A Prenatal Nutrition Course for Moms
The Best At-Home Pregnancy Workouts
