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. 2014 Aug 27;9(8):e106036.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0106036. eCollection 2014.

Aerobic exercise during pregnancy and presence of fetal-maternal heart rate synchronization

Peter Van Leeuwen  1 , Kathleen M Gustafson  2 , Dirk Cysarz  3 , Daniel Geue  4 , Linda E May  5 , Dietrich Grönemeyer  1
Affiliations

Aerobic exercise during pregnancy and presence of fetal-maternal heart rate synchronization

Peter Van Leeuwen et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

It has been shown that short-term direct interaction between maternal and fetal heart rates may take place and that this interaction is affected by the rate of maternal respiration. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of maternal aerobic exercise during pregnancy on the occurrence of fetal-maternal heart rate synchronization.

Methods: In 40 pregnant women at the 36th week of gestation, 21 of whom exercised regularly, we acquired 18 min. RR interval time series obtained simultaneously in the mothers and their fetuses from magnetocardiographic recordings. The time series of the two groups were examined with respect to their heart rate variability, the maternal respiratory rate and the presence of synchronization epochs as determined on the basis of synchrograms. Surrogate data were used to assess whether the occurrence of synchronization was due to chance.

Results: In the original data, we found synchronization occurred less often in pregnancies in which the mothers had exercised regularly. These subjects also displayed higher combined fetal-maternal heart rate variability and lower maternal respiratory rates. Analysis of the surrogate data showed shorter epochs of synchronization and a lack of the phase coordination found between maternal and fetal beat timing in the original data.

Conclusion: The results suggest that fetal-maternal heart rate coupling is present but generally weak. Maternal exercise has a damping effect on its occurrence, most likely due to an increase in beat-to-beat differences, higher vagal tone and slower breathing rates.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors confirm that Daniel Geue is an employee of Visus Technology Transfer GmbH. The contribution of Dr. Geue in the submitted work was to help in the interpretation of the data. Dr. Geue was a long-standing member of the authors’ staff until 2009 and has made substantial contributions to similar work previously published by the authors’ group. His expertise and advice helped the authors understand, analyze and interpret the results of the present study. The content of his contribution was in no way directly related to his work at Visus, and Visus has and will in no way directly benefit financially from Dr. Geue’s contribution. Also, the data availability is not compromised by Dr. Geue’s involvement in the study as the data originated from other contributors (Kathleen M. Gustafson, Linda E. May). To the authors’ knowledge there are also no other non-financial, professional or personal conflicts of interest. So in summary, Dr. Geue’s employment status does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Six minute synchrogram showing a 25 s episode of synchronization starting at 221 s with three fetal beats occurring within two maternal beats at constant phase values (n:m = 3:2).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Relationship between the overall fetal-maternal variance (Δq) and the number of synchronization epochs (SE) found per data set.
Data points are shown separately for the Control (+) and Exercise (O) data, the regression line shown is calculated over all data points.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Distribution of the synchronization epochs (SE) over the maternal beat phase φmat-adj in the original (top row) and surrogate data (bottom row) with respect to the n:m combinations 3:2, 4:3, 5:3 and 7:4.
For the analysis, there were 10 surrogate data sets for each original; the histograms show the number of surrogate SE divided by 10 for comparability. p-values <0.10 for non-uniform distributions are given above the respective histograms, p-values <0.05 in bold type.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Relationship between the median maternal respiratory rate and the number of synchronization epochs (SE) found per data set.
Data points are shown separately for the Control (+) and Exercise (O) data, the regression line shown is calculated over all data points.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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