Behavior of Pregnant Women in Relation to Adhesion to and Period of Compliance with a Water Aerobics Program

Water aerobics is recommended to pregnant women, but there are few studies analyzing adhesion or compliance of pregnant women with exercises. The objective of this study is verifying and characterizing the behavior of pregnant women who practice water aerobics, in regards to the average gestational age upon adhesion (GAA) to the program, average period of compliance (PC) with it and the average gestational age upon interruption (GAI) of the program. A survey was conducted through the database of a gym in Porto Alegre, between 2001 and 2005, with 308 pregnant women, from classes A and B, average age 32.14 ± 4.01 years. The Shapiro-Wilk test for normality and descriptive statistics was utilized in order to analyze measures of central tendency, using the statistical package SPSS, version 11.0. The results in gestational weeks (GW) showed that the GAA was 18.71 ± 5.62 (GW), the PC was 14.85 ± 7.09 (GW) and the GAI was 32.76 ± 4.01 (GW). Only 19.15% (59) of the pregnant women were exercising prior to adhering to the program, and the 80.85% who did not practice any physical activity regularly, started to practice water aerobics after they got pregnant. Most of the pregnant women (91.88%) waited until the end of the first trimester to adhere to the water aerobics program; most of them (76.29%) exercised during the second semester; and some (36.7%) went on practicing water aerobics after the 37 week.