Listening to your body or yielding to societal expectations? An exploration of women’s lived experience of being physically active during pregnancy

Problem
The lack of consistent information and frequent provision of unsolicited advice create challenges for women when making decisions about being physically active during pregnancy and post-partum.
Background
Despite the benefits of physical activity, pregnant women are often inactive. Many women experience a conflict between maintaining their own and their unborn child’s health through physical activity and societal expectations to slow down. This study offers a novel insight into the perspectives of women who remained active throughout pregnancy.
Aim
To explore the facilitators and barriers to physical activity from the perspective of women who remained active during their pregnancies.
Method
Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with five women living in several countries. Interpretative phenomenology framed the data collection and analysis.
Findings
The women’s experiences are reflected through four superordinate themes: Listening to my body to know what to do, Experience of control over my pregnant body, Having a sense of accomplishment, and Support and surveillance: navigating social expectations. The themes highlight a lack of advice, negative societal judgements, and unsolicited comments. Despite these challenges, the women ignored external pressures to reduce activity.
Discussion
Women described several factors that contributed to their decisions to remain active. Crucial to these were the support of key social contacts, reliance on internal signals, and wanting to remain in control.
Conclusion
Despite barriers and societal expectations, the women remained active during pregnancy. Lack of commentary regarding advice from health care professionals suggests clear and consistent guidance could help women manage external expectations and support women to remain active during pregnancy and postpartum.