Before and during pregnancy, women often aim to improve their lifestyle so as to provide a healthier environment for their developing child. It remains unresolved, however, as to whether physical activity (PA) during pregnancy poses a possible risk or whether it might even have beneficial effects on the developing child. There is increasing evidence that PA during pregnancy is indeed beneficial to maternal physiological and psychological health and that it is generally not detrimental to the fetal cardiovascular system and neuronal function in the developing child. This also led to international recommendations for PAs during pregnancy. In the current review, we aimed to comprehensively assess the evidence of beneficial and harmful effects of maternal PA, including high-performance sports, on fetal development. The different mental and body-based relaxation techniques presented here are frequently performed during pregnancy. We found a considerable number of studies addressing these issues. In general, neither low key, moderate maternal PA nor relaxation techniques were observed to have a harmful effect on the developing child. However, we identified some forms of PA which could have at least a transient unfavourable effect. Notably, the literature currently available does not provide enough evidence to enable us to make a general conclusive statement on this subject. This is due to the lack of longitudinal studies on the metabolic and cognitive effects of regular PA during pregnancy and the wide diversity of methods used. In particular, the kind of PA investigated in each study differed from study to study.
Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), which is already known to be a risk factor for pathological intrauterine development, perinatal mortality, and morbidity, is now also assumed to cause both physical and cognitive alterations in later child development. In the current study, effects of IUGR on infantile brain function were investigated during the fetal period and in a follow-up developmental assessment during early childhood. During the fetal period, visual and auditory event-related responses (VER and AER) were recorded using fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). VER latencies were analyzed in 73 fetuses (14 IUGR fetuses) while AER latencies were analyzed in 66 fetuses (11 IUGR fetuses). Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Second Edition (BSID-II) were used to assess the developmental status of the infants at the age of 24 months. The Mental Development Index (MDI) was available from 66 children (8 IUGR fetuses) and the Psychomotor Development Index (PDI) from 63 children (7 IUGR fetuses). Latencies to visual stimulation were more delayed in IUGR than in small for gestational age (SGA) or appropriate for gestational age (AGA) fetuses, albeit not to any significant extent (p = 0.282). The MDI in former IUGR infants was significantly lower (p = 0.044) than in former SGA and AGA infants. However, IUGR had no impact on PDI (p = 0.213). These findings support the hypothesis that IUGR may constitute a risk factor for neurodevelopmental delay. Further investigation of the possible underlying mechanisms, as well as continued long-term developmental research, is therefore necessary.
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