PREGNANT WOMEN AND EXERCISE

Exercise is considered so important in today ’ s world that almost all nations try to include physical exercise in the daily programs of their people extensively. Nowadays, doing exercise by women during puberty and pregnancy, in particular has been emphasized by the medicine. Therefore, assessing the awareness and practice of physical exercise by women during pregnancy we did a descriptive research, and to collect the data all 100 participants, which were selected by non-random sampling method were interviewed. Findings showed that the awareness of 53%, 45% and 2% of the contributors were poor, fair and good, respectively, and in ranging from 0-36, the mean score of their awareness was measured as 12.36 with a mean deviation of 6.04. Considering their practice, 53% were used to walk, 4% suppleness and 3% said that they climb mountain, and the rest 40% did not do any exercise. As the results clearly show there is an intensive need for educating and motivating whole society especially pregnant women toward exercise and to emphasize on it ’ s importance in life long. Health staff and mass media are responsible resources for this vital issue.