102 Parous women perform less moderate to vigorous physical activity than their nulliparous peers: a population-based study in Denmark

TL;DR

Parous women in Denmark are less likely to meet physical activity guidelines compared to nulliparous women, highlighting a need for targeted interventions.

Contribution

This study identifies parous women as a high-risk group for non-adherence to physical activity guidelines using population-based data.

Findings

63.8% of parous women did not adhere to WHO physical activity guidelines.

The non-adherence rate was 24% higher in parous women compared to nulliparous women.

Parous women perform less moderate to vigorous physical activity than their nulliparous peers.

Abstract

The World Health Organisation (WHO) highlights parous women as a key population for monitoring trends of physical activity (PA). We aimed to estimate the proportion of Danish women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines in parous women compared with nulliparous women, and to describe leisure-time PA intensity in each of these groups.

This population-based study builds on a sample of 27,668 women aged 16-40 years from the Danish National Health Survey 2021. These data were linked with childbirth data from the Danish National Birth Registry. The primary outcome was self-reported weekly hours of moderate to vigorous leisure-time PA (MVPA) dichotomized into: (i) Adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA, or (ii) Not adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA. Binomial regression analysis was used to calculate prevalence proportions (PP) and prevalence proportion ratios (PPR).

Of the 27,668 women, a total of 20,022 were included; 9,338 (46.6%) parous women and 10,684 (53.4%) nulliparous women. The PP of women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines was 63.8% (95% CI 62.9-64.8) for parous and 51.3% (95% CI 50.4-52.3) for nulliparous women, corresponding to a PPR of 1.24 (95% CI 1.21;1.27).

The proportion of parous women who did not adhere to WHO PA guidelines for MVPA was 24% higher than that of nulliparous women. This highlights parous women as a subgroup of the adult population at increased risk of non-adherence to WHO PA guidelines. These findings call for future research to inform new strategies aiming to promote PA in parous women.

This work was supported by the Health Foundation (20-B-0260).