Behavior of pregnant women regarding physical activity in gestational diabetes mellitus: secondary analysis of a descriptive cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: The purposeof this study was to compare the physical activity of pregnant women with and without gestational diabetes mellitus regarding the physical activity domains and to verify possible associations between socio-demographic characteristics, nutritional status, and lifestyle with gestational diabetes.

Design /Methods: Consists in a study including 798 adult pregnant women attended by the Unique Health System in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil from 2011 to 2012. The variables studied were recorded using questionnaires, as well as frequency (weekly), duration (minutes) and the metabolic equivalent. The frequency of the categorical variables and the mean and standard deviation (SD) of the continuous variables were calculated and the Mann Whitney test, Student’s t test and the X²test calculated the differences of the study variables according to the presence of diabetes. The adopted significance level was α = 5%.

Results:Indicate that pregnant women with diabetes have lower average energy expenditure in the physical activity domains. However, we found a significant difference between groups regarding the average energy expenditure related to the occupational domain. Considering the Physical Activity (PA) pattern, we found that the sedentary percentage was higher in both groups. However, there were no relevant differences between them. The variables: previously diabetes, nutritional status, pre-gestational and current body mass index were associated with the development of diabetes.

Conclusion: Further studies are needed to explore physical activities in different domains in pregnancy and its relationship with gestational diabetes, especially in the occupational domain.

Keywords:

• Diabetes mellitus
• physical activity
• pregnant women
• exercise
• energy expenditure

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the pregnant women for their collaboration in participating in the investigation, to the Basic Health Unit and their manage(Scholarship PUB), also thank the funders FAPESP(2019/03984-8), CAPES, CNPq(472221/2010-8) and FAEPA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).