ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on exercise as a technique to control pregnancy weight gain and to enhance birth outcomes, illustrating that it is but the latest example of a long history of using physical (in)activity in pregnancy as a way to regulate population health. Feminist scholars have illustrated how, throughout the twentieth century, 'risk' became a central construct around which pregnancy is described, organized and practised in both the popular and medical realm such that in contemporary developed societies, pregnant women are pressed to manage an ever-increasing number of risk factors in order to enhance the life of the unborn child and be considered a responsible mother. Contextual analysis of the changing ideas concerning exercise during pregnancy illustrates how the shifting political, economic and social landscape influenced medical knowledge concerning acceptable physical activity for pregnant women – while women's movement practices simultaneously shaped the questions being asked by medical practitioners, the knowledge produced and the prescriptions provided.
