Occupational Health & Safety

Biography

Biography: Chung-Hey Chen

Abstract

“Doing the month” is Taiwan-specific socio-cultural system, women usually decrease their exercising during their postpartum periods. A growing body of evidence suggests that exercise is important contributor to maternal health and thus is beneficial to infants. Gymnastics is a preferable safe exercise for postnatal women performing regularly. To determine the effectiveness of aerobic gymnastic exercise in health promotion during postpartum, a total of 140 postnatal women without contraindications were systematically assigned, with a random start to experimental (n=70) or a control (n=70) group. Participants in the gymnastic exercise group were instructed to engage in aerobic gymnastic exercise at least 3 times (15 minutes per section) a week in addition to receiving general postnatal care similar to that in the control group for 3 months. Outcome measures include Perceived Stress Scale, Postpartum Fatigue Scale, Postpartum Sleep Quality Scale, and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Sixty-four women in experimental and 65 in control group completed the 4-week post-tests; 60 in the experimental group and 62 in control group completed the 12-week post-tests. Paired t-tests revealed that aerobic gymnastic exercise participants had improved significantly in perceived stress and fatigue after 4 weeks gymnastic exercise; these positive effects extended to the 12-week posttests. In addition, the physical symptoms-related sleep inefficiency of participants showed significant improvements in the aerobic gymnastic exercise group than in the control group at the 12-week posttest. The results contribute to the further study of exercises and compact disc multimedia health education programs for postnatal women.