Prevalence of Exercise and its Determinants among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care Clinic in Al-Kaakiah Primary Health Care Center in Makkah: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Pregnancy is a special period of time, where the mother is taking care of herself as well as her fetus. Since exercise could prevent many complications that may occur during pregnancy, like gestational diabetes, it's important to assess the engagement and awareness about physical activity during pregnancy. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of physical exercise and its determinants among pregnant women attending antenatal care clinics.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study recruiting pregnant adult women attending the ANC clinic in Al-Kaakiah PHC center in Makkah. Those who were not eligible to be followed in PHCC or had a contraindication to exercise according to ACOG guidelines were excluded from this study. The sample size equals 104 selected randomly from 11 PHCCs. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from pregnant women. The questions investigated sociodemographic variables, reproductive factors, and patterns of exercise. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, and percentages were calculated to summarize nominal and ordinal data, while mean, median, and standard deviation or the range to describe numerical variables. Chi-squared test was applied to evaluate the association between the determinants and engagement in physical exercise.
Results: A total sample of 105 pregnant women, the majority of women aged 26-35 years old (62.9%), while only 14.3% were in the age groups older than 35. About 77% of pregnant women had no comorbidities and only 33% had comorbidities, namely, anemia, cervical insufficiency, and gestational diabetes. The prevalence of physical exercise during pregnancy was 57.1% which most commonly involved running and swimming. Age, BMI, income, educational level, and nationality were not significantly associated with physical exercise during pregnancy. The presence of walking paths in the neighborhood was significantly related to physical exercise during pregnancy. Pregnancy factors such as gestational age, previous miscarriage, and awareness about physical exercise during pregnancy were not significantly related to practice during pregnancy.
Conclusions: The prevalence of physical activity among pregnant women was inadequate with running and swimming being the most common exercises. This study identified the target group for educational campaigns which includes pregnant housewives who have no walking path in the neighborhood.