INTRODUCTION: The incidence of depression is high during the perinatal period. This mood disorder can have a significant impact on the mother, the child and the family. OBJECTIVE: To examine the effect of an exercise programme during pregnancy on the risk of perinatal depression. METHODS: Healthy women who were < 16 weeks pregnant were randomly assigned to two different groups. Women in the intervention group participated in a 60 min exercise programme throughout pregnancy, 3 days per week, which was conducted from October 2014 to December 2016. The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale was used to measure the risk of depression at the beginning of the study (12 to 16 weeks), at gestational week 38 and at 6 weeks postpartum. RESULTS: One hundred and twenty-four pregnant women were allocated to either the intervention (IG = 70) or the control (CG = 54) group. No differences were found in the percentage of depressed women at baseline (20% versus 18.5%) (Chi2 = 0.043; p = 0.836). A smaller percentage of depressed women were identified in the IG compared with the CG at 38 gestational weeks (18.6% versus 35.6%) (Chi2 = 4.190; p = 0.041) and at 6 weeks postpartum (14.5% versus 29.8%) (Chi2 = 3.985; p = 0.046) using the per-protocol analysis. No significant differences were found using the intention-to-treat analyses, except in the multiple imputation analysis at week 38 (18.6% versus 34.4%) (Chi2 = 4.085; p = 0.049). CONCLUSION: An exercise programme performed during pregnancy may reduce the prevalence of depression in late pregnancy and postpartum. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02420288; results.
Reproduced with permission from the BMJ Publishing Group.

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