An investigation into regional medical practitioners' knowledge of exercise during pregnancy guidelines

Increasing physical activity (PA) behaviours amongAustralian pregnant women is recognised as a nationalhealth priority.1This priority arises from the well-established link between physical activity during preg-nancy and health benefits for both mother and herunborn child.2Despite these benefits, research suggeststhat <35% of Australian pregnant women are cur-rently meeting exercise during pregnancy guidelines3which recommend an accumulation of at least150 min of moderate-vigorous PA per week, consistingof both aerobic and resistance-based activity.2The priority to increase PA among pregnant womenis further amplified in rural, regional and remote Aus-tralia where pregnant women report lower levels ofPA, poorer maternal outcomes and reduced access tospecialist health care services.4As a result, medicalpractitioners in these communities are often requiredto provide a wider range of antenatal care services,including the provision of PA advice and counselling.5Previous international research suggests that a lack ofknowledge of the exercise during pregnancy guidelinesamong practitioners has contributed to medical practi-tioners not actively engaging in PA counselling withpregnant women, and that when advice is provided, itis not always reflective of current evidence-basedguidelines.5However, little is known about Australianmedical practitioners’ knowledge of exercise duringpregnancy guidelines. Therefore, the aim of this pre-sent study was to explore the knowledge of PA duringpregnancy guidelines among a sample of regionallybased Australian medical practitioners.