What this study adds: Three months of aerobic exercise training reduces the severity of symptoms of depression among pregnant women. A randomised trial was conducted. Participants were recruited from the prenatal care services of three hospitals in Cali, Colombia. Women who were interested in the study were invited to a screening visit at one of the centres. Sociodemographic data were recorded and

a detailed physical examination was performed by a physician to determine eligibility. After confirmation of eligibility, the women were MLN0128 in vitro randomly allocated to one of two groups: aerobic exercise plus usual prenatal care, or usual prenatal care only. Randomisation was performed using a permuted block design with a block size of 10 and exp:con ratios of 5:5, 6:4 or 4:6. Participants in the exercise group commenced the program when each block was completed, allowing supervised group exercise high throughput screening compounds sessions comprising three to five women. Baseline measures were taken the day before the exercise program commenced and outcomes were measured the day after the program was completed. The investigator responsible for randomly assigning participants to treatment groups did not know in advance which treatment the next person would receive (concealed allocation) and did not participate in administering the intervention or measuring outcomes. The investigators responsible for assessing eligibility and baseline measures were blinded to group allocation. Participants

and therapists administering the intervention were not blinded. The investigators responsible for outcome assessment were blinded to group allocation. All investigators received training before the trial and reminders during the trial regarding the protocol, the measurement procedures, and the methods and importance of maintaining

blinding. Measurements were taken at baseline (Month 0, which corresponded to 16–20 MTMR9 weeks of gestation) and at the end of the three-month intervention period (Month 3, week 28–32 of gestation). Pregnant women were eligible for the study if they were aged between 16 and 30 years, between 16 and 20 weeks of gestation, with a live foetus at the routine ultrasound scan. They were excluded if they had participated in a structured exercise program in the past six months or had a history of high blood pressure, chronic medical illnesses (cancer, renal, endocrine, psychiatric, neurologic, infectious, or cardiovascular diseases), persistent bleeding after week 12 of gestation, poorly controlled thyroid disease, placenta praevia, incompetent cervix, polyhydramnios, oligohydramnios, miscarriage in the last 12 months, or diseases that could interfere with participation, according to the recommendations of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM 2009) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (Artal and O’Toole, 2003). At each participating centre two health professionals, who volunteered, were trained to recruit and assess eligibility.