Promoting Prenatal Exercise From a Sociocultural and Life-Course Perspective: An "Embodied" Conceptual Framework.

Purpose: Prenatal exercise is a health behavior that is receiving growing attention amid concern that women in Western societies are gaining excess weight during pregnancy and contributing to future obesity in both the mother and child. In this article, we draw on insights from the fields of social epidemiology and social theory of the body to examine existing prenatal exercise interventions and to propose a multidimensional framework intended to guide future theorizing and intervention design.

Method: A scoping review of existing prenatal exercise programs and interventions focused on controlling gestational weight gain was conducted.