There is a general consensus that moderate intensity PA is safe to perform and does not place the fetus at any unnecessary risk. Although the evidence for the role of PA in birth outcomes is contradictory, some studies suggest that PA may have a protective effect on outcomes such as low birth weight, preterm birth and intrauterine growth restriction. In addition, women who are physically active during pregnancy benefit from increased cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength, as well as psychological benefits and improved mental health. Participating in 20–30 minutes of moderate intensity PA on most days of the week (approximately 150 minutes per week), as recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), provides various benefits such as reduced risk of excessive gestational weight gain, gestational diabetes mellitus and preeclampsia. It is now generally accepted that regular physical activity (PA) has a fundamental role to play in positive health outcomes during pregnancy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This submission also received support from the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in the Republic of South Africa LKM would like to acknowledge funding from the Academy of Medical Sciences-Newton Advanced Fellowship. SAN is supported by the MRC/DFID African Research Leader Scheme (UK). The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust (UK), Medical Research Council of South Africa. Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the authors and the NRF does not accept any liability in this regard. All relevant data are within the Supporting Information files.įunding: This work is based on the research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant no. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. Received: JanuAccepted: Published: May 26, 2017Ĭopyright: © 2017 Watson et al. PLoS ONE 12(5):Įditor: Pedro Tauler, Universitat de les Illes Balears, SPAIN When compared to accelerometry, the GPAQ shows poor agreement and appears to overestimate PA and underestimate SB during pregnancy.Ĭitation: Watson ED, Micklesfield LK, van Poppel MNM, Norris SA, Sattler MC, Dietz P (2017) Validity and responsiveness of the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) in assessing physical activity during pregnancy. It underestimates SB by 127.5 min/day at 14–18 weeks and by 89.2 min/day at 29–33 weeks gestation. Bland Altman plots indicated that the GPAQ overestimates PA by 14.8 min/day at 14–18 weeks and by 15.8 min/day at 29–33 weeks gestation. There was poor agreement between the GPAQ and accelerometry for both PA and SB at both time points (ICC: -0.05–0.08). There was a significant difference between accelerometry and GPAQ when measuring moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) at 29–33 weeks gestation (16.6 vs 21.4 min/day p = 0.02) as well as sedentary behaviour (SB) at both 14–18 weeks (457.0 vs 300 min/day p < 0.01) and 29–33 weeks gestation (431.5 vs 300 min/day p < 0.01). In this longitudinal study, 95 pregnant women (mean age: 29.5±5.7 years BMI: 26.9±5.0 kg/m 2) completed the GPAQ and were asked to wear an accelerometer for 7 days at two time points during pregnancy (14–18 and 29–33 weeks gestation). The Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) has been used extensively in low-to-middle income countries, but has never been validated in a pregnant population.
The physiological and biomechanical changes that occur during pregnancy make accurate measurement of physical activity (PA) a challenge during this unique period.
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