[Quality of life related to health in a population of healthy pregnant women after a program of physical activity in the aquatic environment.]

OBJECTIVE: Moderate physical exercise brings benefits to pregnant women during pregnancy. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effect on the quality of life of a six-week aquatic physical activity program in healthy pregnant women.

METHODS: A six-week physical activity program was conducted in the aquatic environment, from May to July 2016 in a sports center, to a total of 46 pregnant women, who were distributed in Experimental (n = 18) and Control (n = 28) groups, to which the health-related quality of life questionnaire SF-36 v2 was applied before and after the program. The t-student test for paired samples was statistically applied for intragroup means, and for the differences between groups, the t-student test for independent samples.

RESULTS: At the end of the physical activity program, it was clearly established that it acted positively on the following dimensions whose mean values were: perception of Body Pain (BP) before 66.1 and after 68.4 perception of General Health (GH) before 81.3 and then 83.6, Emotional Role (ER) before 89.0 and Then 93.5 and Mental Health (MH) 80.7 before and 84.2 after.

CONCLUSIONS: The practice of a program of physical activity in the aquatic environment for pregnant women provides benefits related to the perception of health-related quality of life.