Mother's Exercise Can Affect Baby's Brain - Cognitive

Past studies have shown, for example, that a baby’s heart rate typically rises in unison with his or her exercising mother’s, as if the child were also working out. As a result, scientists believe, babies born to active mothers tend to have more robust cardiovascular systems from an early age than babies born to mothers who are less active.

An experiment presented this month by the Society for Neuroscience, for instance, reported that pregnant rats allowed to run on wheels throughout their pregnancies birthed pups that performed better in early childhood on a tricky memory test — having to identify unfamiliar objects in a familiar environment — than pups born to inactive moms. These clever rats retained their cognitive advantage into adulthood.

When the mother exercises, she generates a variety of chemicals, including many related to brain health, which can move into her bloodstream and eventually mingle with the blood of her baby.