The effect of walking during late pregnancy on the outcomes of labor and delivery: A randomized clinical trial

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Exercising during pregnancy has various benefits for the mother and the fetus, but there are controversial results about its effect on labor and delivery. Therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of walking during late pregnancy on the outcomes of labor and delivery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present randomized clinical trial was conducted on 102 pregnant women who were referred to the comprehensive health service centers of Rafsanjan and were selected using convenient sampling method and randomly were allocated into two groups from August 2018 to February 2019. The intervention group performed walking from the 34th week of pregnancy until the time of delivery 4 times per week, each time for 40 min. The control group just received the routine prenatal care. Information about the outcomes of delivery were gathered from the participants' medical files in the hospital and were analyzed using SPSS software version 22 and Chi-square and independent t-tests. RESULTS: The results indicated that the Bishop score of the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group (P 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Walking during late pregnancy could improve Bishop score, increase spontaneous onset of labor, and decrease induction, cesarean, and instrumental delivery without having any adverse effect on the neonate's Apgar score.

Keywords

• delivery
• late pregnancy
• outcome labor
• walking