Women's Healthwell supported · human dataDiscovery of the day
Exercise reduced depressive symptoms around pregnancy in a pooled analysis of nine randomised trials, with a moderate overall effect; the benefit was clear during pregnancy but close to zero when exercise happened in the postpartum period.
- Study design
- Meta-analysis
- Journal
- Int J Public Health
- Evidence
- well supported
What it shows: Real but fragile: results pooled from just nine trials where women were assigned at random, and those trials disagreed with each other a lot. The benefit showed up when exercise happened during pregnancy; postnatal programmes barely moved symptoms.Meta-analysis · Int J Public Health
Impact of Exercise Dose-Response on Maternal Mental Health and Perinatal Depression Prevention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Int J Public Health 2025Read the study →