Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing
ResearchExercise Is Associated With Elevated Proinflammatory Cytokines in Human Milk
Section snippets
Method
The original study researched stress and immunity in postpartum women and was approved by university and hospital institutional review boards. Women were recruited after giving birth in the postpartum unit of the university hospital in a southern U.S. city, and they gave informed consent at that time. Inclusion criteria required that the women were healthy, had no chronic diseases, were not taking medications that could influence immune function, and had uneventful labors and deliveries, with
Demographic Instrument and Exercise Questions
The demographic instrument asked for information on socioeconomic status, current weight, parity, labor and birth history, and smoking and alcohol consumption and contained a section on current exercise activities. For exercise, mothers were asked to select the number of minutes per week of exercise currently performed from none, less than 30, 30 to 60, 60 to 90, 90 to 120, or greater than 120. These categories were assigned the scores of 0 through 5. The mothers also described in writing the
Demographics
The mean age of the women was 28.5 years, and the majority were married. There was one African American and one Hispanic participant, with the remainder being White. Sixty-seven percent had vaginal birth, with remainder having Caesarean births. The mean length of labor was 9.1 hours. Sixty-four percent of the sample had two or more children. Forty-one percent had yearly incomes over $40,000. Seventy percent were not working, 8% were working part-time, and 24% were working full-time. The mean
Discussion
This study suggests the possibility that moderate to vigorous exercise in the early postpartum (Weeks 4-6) is associated with shifts toward proinflammatory cytokine production in milk that exceeds production in those mothers who either did not exercise or engaged in minimal exercise. The level of caloric expenditure produced by the exercise was related to increases in a cluster of proinflammatory cytokines in mothers' milk. Although demographic data that were collected did not relate to levels
Limitations
A significant limitation to this study is the cross-sectional design, use of self-report data, a nonvalidated exercise instrument, and an approximation of total calories expended by the various type and time of exercise. In addition, only 2 of the 58 women were categorized as vigorous exercisers, and the sample needs to be increased in future work. The purpose of the original study differed, and it was only after data had been collected that the authors became interested in the exercise–immune
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