Boring household dangerous for moms-to-be

Pregnant women have always been advised to go easy. Now there’s science to back it up.

According to the findings of a new study, pregnancy is not the time for household chores. The study, published in the current issue of the journal Pediatric Epidemiology, found that doing “boring and repetitive” household chores during pregnancy raises the odds of giving birth prematurely.

Doing mentally unstimulating work day-in day-out raises the risk of giving birth at least three weeks early by around 25 percent, researchers warn.

The findings of the study are backed by pregnancy records of nearly 12,000 new moms.

It data collected included details about the mom-to-be’s daily physical activities for both exercise and household chores, job profiles, overall pregnancy health, gestation of pregnancy and baby weight.

The results indicated that moms who indulged in mentally un-stimulating work were more likely to give birth prematurely. Their risk of giving birth at least three weeks before term were around 25 percent higher than moms who abstained doing such jobs.

Researchers believe that doing boring and repetitive tasks increase the levels of stress hormones that are involved in causing labor.

Conversely, switching to a completely sedentary lifestyle spells more trouble, researchers warn. Taking up a completely sedentary lifestyle increases the chances of having an underweight baby, researchers found.

“Pregnancy is not a disease. In fact, most women who are pregnant are healthy and most of them are being delivered of perfectly healthy babies. Women who are healthy and do not have pregnancy complications should not restrict their activities in order to achieve a better pregnancy outcome” lead researcher, Hajo Wildschut, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam stated.

Patrick O’Brien, a consultant obstetrician at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists added, “Exercise is good in pregnancy, it keeps you aerobically fit, it keeps your weight under control, it probably reduces the chances of difficulties and it makes it easier to deal with the birth and after wards.”