Gretchen Reynolds Column Summary and Analysis

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In “Mother’s Exercise May Boost Baby’s Brain “ ,published in the New York Times , Gretchen Reynolds demonstrates that if a women is physically active rather than being inactive during a pregnancy , her baby will have more of an advantage in brain development. Through experiments, Reynolds bases of her argument and proves that exercise will boost a baby’s brain. The first experiment, which was presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting in San Diego, was done with a group of pregnant rats. Scientists allowed for some of the rats to exercise throughout their pregnancy by allowing them to run on the wheel. After their pregnancy, tests were done on the pups by having them identify unfamiliar objects. As a result of this experiment, the rats who were allowed to exercise gave birth to smarter pups than the sedentary moms. Another study was done by researchers at the University of Montreal who recruited a group of pregnant women to test .Like the first experiment .a group of the women were told to exercise and the rest remained sedentary. As low as twenty minutes did the physically active women had to exercise for at least three times a week. After six months of this experiment the women finally gave birth and twelve days later were asked to bring their newborns for tests to be done on them. Researchers had the babies respond to the different kinds of sounds with a spike. The studies showed once again that the babies who had mothers who exercised throughout their pregnancy had more of a noticeable response to the sounds. It is still unclear to Scientists how a mother that exercises has an effect on the brain development of their baby, but they assume that the mother generates a variety of chemicals which affects it. In conclusion healthy mothers will have a better chance of having healthier and more brain developed babies if they exercise even the

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