• The Sport Santé sur prescription scheme, initiated eleven years ago by the City of Strasbourg, has a new dimension with its opening to pregnant women and young mothers just a year ago.
  • Health professionals can enjoy physical activities, swimming, free, adapted and supervised by professionals.
  • With the objective of "fighting against a sedentary lifestyle and its procession of chronic diseases," says Dr. Alexandre Feltz, elected deputy mayor but also a doctor by profession, at the origin of the Sport Santé prescription network present in many French cities.

"It makes me feel good and I feel it's good for the baby too," says Camille, a young woman who is five and a half months pregnant. In full physical exercise in the pool of one of the swimming pools of Strasbourg, the mother-to-be, who was "not particularly used to doing sports" before her pregnancy, seized the opportunity when her gynecologist offered her to benefit from a new component of the Sport Santé prescription device. An eleven-year-old device of which the European capital is at the origin.

This Friday, Camille participates, for forty-five minutes in a group lesson, but in small numbers, exclusively reserved for pregnant women and young mothers, a new component of the "Sport Santé" system. Next to her is Fatima, six months pregnant. She is just as happy and "not concerned at all" as she was suggested by her doctor. If, unlike Camille, she practiced different sports a few months ago, she immediately saw the opportunity, with these adapted activities, to "take care of herself and the baby" and maintain her shape for childbirth. This Friday was her first class, but she assures him, she will "continue until the end and even after".



Adapted and supervised activities

The opportunity especially to get motivated, to start or get back to sport, with swimming activities adapted and supervised by professionals, or even yoga or prenatal gym. A remedy to "fight against sedentary lifestyle and its procession of chronic diseases," says Dr. Alexandre Feltz, elected deputy mayor but also a doctor by profession, at the origin of the Sport Santé prescription network present in many French cities. A device that allows, to put it simply, to a health professional, to prescribe physical activity, free of charge, as "as a medicine". If, eleven years ago, this was intended to help fight against various pathologies such as obesity, diabetes, the device has, over the years, extended to the greatest number. Because the primary objective is "to prevent and show the benefits of regular physical and sports practice" for the entire population, explains Alexandre Feltz.

The benefits of an adapted activity

For just over a year, this system has been extended in Strasbourg to pregnant women and young mothers. Because "the benefits in terms of public health and improvement of quality of life, as for all, but especially during maternity, are numerous," recalls the doctor confirmed by the data of the Ministry of Sports. It lists: participation in the control of weight gain, the reduction of lower back pain, the improvement of venous circulation, the protection of the perineum, the prevention of intestinal transit disorders, facilitating mobility, reducing anxiety and depression that could be felt, especially after pregnancy, etc.

In Strasbourg, the birth of this new initiative made possible in particular by the significant financial participation of the Impact 24 Endowment Fund of the Paris Olympics, or even the Departmental Youth Service, was painless. More than a hundred women are already benefiting from it and the requests are multiplying. This new membership should make small even if this proposal still suffers from not being sufficiently known by the general public and perinatal actors, notes the Maison Sport Santé de Strasbourg. Pregnancy "is a particular moment of life during which, somewhat intuitively, women tend to reduce their physical activity while on the contrary, insists Alexandre Feltz, if it is well adapted to this moment of life, it is very favorable to their state of health. "

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