Premium
Swimming exercise before and during pregnancy: Promising preventive approach to impact offspring's health
Author(s) -
Klein Caroline Peres,
Santos Rodrigues Karoline,
Hözer Régis Mateus,
Sá CoutoPereira Natividade,
Saccomori André Brum,
Dal Magro Bárbara Mariño,
Crestani Mariana Scortegagna,
Hoppe Juliana Bender,
Salbego Christianne Gazzana,
Dalmaz Carla,
Matté Cristiane
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of developmental neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.761
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1873-474X
pISSN - 0736-5748
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2018.08.009
Subject(s) - offspring , pregnancy , affect (linguistics) , reflex , motor skill , physiology , psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , physical medicine and rehabilitation , biology , genetics , communication
Several environmental factors affect child development, such as the intrauterine environment during the embryonic and fetal development and early postnatal environment provided by maternal behavior. Although mechanistic effects of maternal exercise on offspring health improvement are not yet completely understood, the number of reports published demonstrating the positive influence of maternal exercise have increase. Herein, we addressed issues related to early postnatal environment provided by maternal behavior and early developmental physical landmarks, sensorimotor reflexes, and motor movements ontogeny. In brief, adult female rats underwent involuntary swimming exercise, in a moderated intensity, one week before mating and throughout pregnancy, 30 min a day, 5 days a week. Maternal exercised dams have unchanged gestational outcomes compared to sedentary dams. We found no differences concerning the frequency of pup‐directed behavior displayed by dams. However, sedentary dams displayed a poorer pattern of maternal care quality during dark cycle than exercised dams. Physical landmarks and sensorimotor reflexes development of female and male littermates did not differ between maternal groups. Developmental motor parameters such as immobility, lateral head movements, head elevation, pivoting, rearing with forelimb support and crawling frequencies did not differ between groups. Pups born to exercised dams presented higher frequency of walking and rearing on the hind legs. These data suggest that female and male littermates of exercised group present a high frequency of exploratory behavior over sedentary littermates. Taken together, the present findings reinforce that maternal exercise throughout pregnancy represent a window of opportunity to improve offspring's postnatal health.