Pregnant Women Move More & Sit Less Have A Lower Risk Of Complications
If you're pregnant and already making an effort to exercise, that matters. But a new study1 suggests that what you do between those workouts may be just as worth paying attention to. Researchers found that pregnant women who sat less and moved more throughout the day, even with light, everyday activity, had significantly lower risks of pregnancy complications, including high blood pressure-related conditions. And those benefits held up even after accounting for structured exercise.
What researchers set out to measure
The study, published in JAMA, looked at how everyday movement habits (specifically how much time pregnant women spent sitting, doing light activity, and walking) related to pregnancy health outcomes. Rather than relying on self-reported data, researchers used wearable devices to track how participants moved throughout the day. Current guidelines recommend 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week during pregnancy, but this study was designed to examine whether the movement happening outside of those formal workouts also plays a role.
Sitting more was linked to twice the risk of complications
Women who sat for roughly 10 or more hours a day had more than double the risk of pregnancy complications compared to women who sat around 7 hours daily. On the flip side, women who did the most light-intensity activity had about half the risk of complications compared to those who moved the least.
Daily step counts also made a difference. The study found lower risk in the moderate- and high-step groups compared to women with the fewest daily steps.
These associations held up even after the researchers accounted for how much time women spent doing moderate or vigorous exercise. In other words, the benefits of moving more throughout the day weren't just explained by who was also hitting the gym; everyday movement appeared to offer something extra on its own.
When hitting your exercise targets isn't realistic
Fatigue, nausea, discomfort, and the general physical demands of pregnancy can make hitting a structured exercise target genuinely hard, especially in the first and third trimesters.
This study suggests there may be another way to support your health during pregnancy. Simply reducing how long you sit and adding more light movement throughout the day (even if it doesn't look anything like a workout) may offer real benefits on its own.
Light-intensity activity includes things like standing, slow walking, light household tasks, and gentle stretching. Nothing that requires a gym membership, a schedule, or a lot of physical effort, just more movement woven into your day.
Easy ways to move more without a formal workout
A few simple shifts that can help:
- Break up long stretches of sitting: If you work at a desk or spend a lot of time on the couch, try setting a reminder to stand up and move around for a few minutes every hour.
- Take short walks: Even brief walks, around the block, to a nearby store, or during a lunch break, help reduce sitting time and add to your daily movement.
- Stand when you can: Standing during a phone call, while watching TV, or while doing light tasks adds up more than you'd think over the course of a day.
- Count household activity: Tidying up, cooking, and other everyday tasks all count as light-intensity movement.
None of this is meant to replace regular exercise; staying active during pregnancy still matters. But for women who are already active, or for those navigating the challenges of pregnancy and the years that follow, these findings are a good reminder that the movement woven into the rest of your day counts, too.
If you're thinking about your long-term health picture, habits you build in your 30s can also shape how you feel through perimenopause and beyond. And if you're curious about how fitness metrics connect to women's health more broadly, understanding your VO2 max is a good place to start.
The takeaway
A new JAMA study found that pregnant women who sat less and moved more throughout the day had significantly lower risks of pregnancy complications, and those benefits held even after accounting for structured exercise. Reducing sitting time and adding more light movement, like short walks and regular standing breaks, may be a practical way to support pregnancy health. Women in the moderate- and high-step groups had fewer adverse outcomes than those with the lowest daily step counts, reinforcing that everyday movement matters.