Knowledge and Practice of Exercise During Pregnancy Among Pregnant Women Receiving Antenatal Care in Selected Public Health Facilities in Lusaka, Zambia

Abstract

Exercise during pregnancy improves women's psychological well-being, reduces caesarean section rates, risk of being overweight during pregnancy, lower back pain, and length of labor and recovery time. However, physical inactivity during pregnancy is a major problem in most low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Africa and often this contributes to the risk of adverse pregnancies and birth outcomes that creates significant maternal care costs such as, increased caesarean section rates, increased health care utilization, and increased length of hospital stay. We determined the level of knowledge and practice of exercise during pregnancy among pregnant women who were receiving antenatal care in selected public health facilities in Lusaka, Zambia. We also assessed factors associated with knowledge and practice of physical exercise among participants. A descriptive study was conducted among 250 pregnant women and data was collected using the modified knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) questionnaire. Descriptive analysis of data was conducted in Stata version 20.0 for windows and the multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to evaluate the relationships between the study variables at 0.05 statistical level of significance. Most of the participants (78%) had sufficient knowledge about exercise and engaged in some form of exercise activities regularly during pregnancy of which walking was the commonest (49%) mode of physical exercise. Further, majority of them (75%) indicated medical personnel as their main source of knowledge. Skilled health workers have a vital role to play in the provision of information on physical activity among pregnant women during ANC. Their activity including that of exercise experts must be encouraged to improve participation and effective practice of exercise during pregnancy. The outcomes on exercise activities such as walking are very practical for LMICs settings and must be promoted because they are easily accessible, can be performed at home and requires minimal equipment