Water Exercise and Quality of Life in Pregnancy: A Randomised Clinical Trial Rodríguez Blanque, Raquel Marín Jiménez, Ana Eugenia Aguilar Cordero, Josefa Menor Rodríguez, María José Montiel Troya, María Sánchez García, Juan Carlos Pregnant woman Physical activity Quality of life Exercise Background: Physical exercise helps to maintain a healthy lifestyle and its practice is recommended for women during pregnancy as a means of limiting the negative effects on the body that may take place and to optimise well-being, mood and sleep patterns, as well as encouraging daily physical activity, enhancing the ability to work and preventing pregnancy-related complications. Aim: To analyse the quality of life in pregnancy for women who complete a programme of moderate physical activity in water, following a designed method that the woman can perform physical exercise safely during pregnancy called the SWEP (study of water exercise during pregnancy) method. Materials and methods: A randomised clinical trial was performed. One hundred and twenty-nine pregnant women were randomly assigned either to an exercise class following the SWEP method (EG, n = 65) or to a control group (CG, n = 64). The trial began in week 20 of pregnancy (May 2016) and ended in week 37 (October 2016). Heath-related quality of life (HRQoL) was evaluated with the SF36v2 health questionnaire at weeks 12 and 35 of pregnancy. Results: The HRQoL score decreased significantly between weeks 12 and 35 of gestation, except for the mental health component, which in the CG fell by -3.28 points and in the EG increased slightly (p > 0.05). Among the CG, the score for the mental health component at week 35 was <42, indicating a positive screening risk of depression (39.20 +/- 4.16). Conclusions: Physical activity programmes in water, such as SWEP, enhance the HRQoL of pregnant women. 2020-05-04T11:45:37Z 2020-05-04T11:45:37Z 2020-02-17 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Rodríguez-Blanque, R., Aguilar-Cordero, M. J., Marín-Jiménez, A. E., Menor-Rodríguez, M. J., Montiel-Troya, M., & Sánchez-García, J. C. (2020). Water Exercise and Quality of Life in Pregnancy: A Randomised Clinical Trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(4), 1288. http://hdl.handle.net/10481/61756 10.3390/ijerph17041288 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI