The acute effect of aquatic exercises on heart rate variability of pregnancy

Abstract

Chronic Aquatic physical exercise(Voss, 2000 #165) during pregnancy helps reduce heart rate variability mainly in women in their third trimester gestational. In this context, the purpose of the study was to assess the acute of aquatic physical on heart rate variability in pregnant women in their third trimester. Twenty-one pregnant women (31.18 ± 3.21 years-old, 1.53 ± 0.05 m, 70.33 ± 17.61 kg, BMI of 27.87 ± 2.78 m² kg^-1) were included. The heart rate variability of the volunteers submitted to a session of aquatic physical effort was measured up to 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes after intervention. Heart rate variability was analyzed in the time domain as well as the frequency time. Heart rate variability response in function of time (resting x activity) was between compared using the ANOVA test with p<0.05. When comparing low frequency, in the frequency domain, a reduction of the sympathetic modulation was found (0.08±0.03 vs. 0.05±0.02, p<0.05) when to compare baseline condition. On the other hand, an increase of the vagal modulation was observed, characterized by the high frequency (0.17±0.02; 0.18±0.04, p<0.05). In conclusion, the results suggest that a session of APE can be to improve heart rate variability in pregnant women in their third trimester gestational.