The importance of maintaining a healthy weight and exercising during pregnancy has again been highlighted by researchers.

According to their findings, pregnant women who consume a healthy diet and exercise can expect to see improvements in their overall health and reduce their risk of suffering complications during childbirth.

Currently in Ireland, between 20-25% of women are already obese when they become pregnant and this can increase the risk of a number of health problems, including gestational diabetes and high blood pressure.

For the baby, risks include being born early and having a larger birth weight.

These latest findings from Thailand are based on a major review of 37 studies that were published between 2011 and 2014, and involved almost 11,500 women.

The review found that diet and/or exercise interventions can prevent excessive weight gain in pregnancy. Women who were provided with interventions, such as an exercise programme, or a low-sugar diet, were less likely to gain excess weight while pregnant.

They were also found to be less likely to have high blood pressure, and were less likely to require a caesarean section or have a baby with a large birth weight.

The exercise interventions studied were usually of moderate intensity and included walking and pilates.

According to the researchers, these findings ‘will be important for informing antenatal care guidelines'.

"Pregnancy is a time when women have a lot of contact with healthcare providers, therefore there is no better time to engage and support women to make healthy lifestyle choices. We hope that these findings will encourage women not to overeat and to exercise regularly with the knowledge that their efforts will be rewarded with lower pregnancy weight gain and better health outcomes for themselves and their baby,' they said.

Details of these findings are published in The Cochrane Library.

For more information on pregnancy, see our Pregnancy Clinic here