Côté et al. Balancing benefits and risks of exercise in pregnancy: a qualitative analysis of social media discussion: BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine 2024;10:e002176.
The full article can be found here
Tell us more about yourself and the author team.
I’m an obstetrics and gynaecology resident doctor who is doing research at King’s College London and a big hospital in London, UK. My co-authors are Dr Madeleine Benton (clinical psychologist), Rachael Gardner (research midwife), and Prof Rachel Tribe (perinatal scientist).
What is the story behind your study?
We’d noticed that patients who attend the antenatal clinic often have questions about what exercise is and isn’t safe, especially if they have a high-risk pregnancy. We know that people increasingly consult social media for health information, so we wanted to explore what is being said about exercise during pregnancy.
In your own words, what did you find?
We did a thematic analysis of posts and comments on a big social media site, Reddit. We found wide-ranging discussions of the benefits of exercise during pregnancy but also concerns about possible risks. Reddit users discussed how they decided what exercise to do—strategies included listening to their body, asking a professional, or abstaining if they weren’t sure. Reddit users also discussed who they might approach when seeking advice regarding exercise, e.g., doctor, midwife, or personal trainer.
The most interesting finding for me was that there is a lot of advice on social media that is not based on evidence and is often contradictory. For example, many Reddit users expressed concerns about developing diastasis recti if they did ab exercises during pregnancy, even though studies show that ab exercises are protective.
What was the main challenge you faced in your study?
Research using large amounts of social media data requires special ethical considerations because researchers cannot ask each participant for consent. In our case, we concluded that Reddit users understood that their data was public. We discuss this in more detail in the paper.
If there is one take-home message from your study, what would that be?
We compiled a list of the concerns that Reddit users had about exercise safety during pregnancy and looked at the evidence. We found that many of the concerns are not backed up by research, but research is lacking in many areas. For example, little research is on high intensity (>90% maximum heart rate) during pregnancy. We hope the summary in our discussion will help clinicians have open and honest conversations with their patients about what we do and do not know about the safety of specific pregnancy exercises.