The influence of physical activity during pregnancy on maternal, fetal or infant heart rate variability: a systematic review

Table 7 Summary of study results concerning the influence of maternal PA on HRV

Finding	First author, year	SDNN	RMSSD	TP	HF	HF/TP	IntF	LF	VLF	VLF/HF	VLF/LF	LF/HF
Maternal	May, [47]	↑	↑^a	-	↑^a	-	-	↑^a	↑^a	-	-	n.s.
	Van Leeuwen, [41]	n.s.	n.s.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	Stutzman [43]	-	-	(↑)	n.s.	n.s.	-	(↑)	-	-	-	n.s.
	Satyapriya [36]	-	-	-	↑	-	-	↓	-	-	-	↓
Fetal	Van Leeuwen, [41]	↑	↑	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	May, Suminski, [37]	↑	n.s.	-	↑	-	-	↑	↑	-	-	-
	Gustafson, [42]	-	n.s.	n.s.	↑	-	↑	n.s.	n.s.	n.s.	n.s.	n.s.
	May, [38]	↑	↑	-	↑	-	↑	↑	↑	-	-	-
	May, [40]	↑^a	↑^a	-	↑^a	-	↑^a	↑^a	↑^a	-	-	-
Infant	May, Scholtz, [39]	n.s.	↑	-	↑	-	-	↑	-	-	-	-

(HF high frequency, HRV heart rate variability, IntF intermediate frequency, LF low frequency, n.s. RMSSD root mean square of successive difference, SDNN standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals, TP total power, VLF very low frequency)
↑, increase; ↓, decrease; -, variable not assessed
(↑), HRV parameters were decreased from gw20 to gw36 in all 4 groups but these decreases were only significant in the control groups. In consequence, there was a relative increase of maternal HRV parameters in the exercise groups compared to the control groups namely that the decrease of HRV was smaller in the exercise groups. Therefore, we used this symbol (↑) to illustrate relative increase
^asignificant changes in HRV between exercise and control group have been found but not at all time-points of measuring (gw28, gw32, gw36)

ISSN: 1471-2393