The Effect of Integrated Yoga on Cognitive Functions in Pregnant Women - A Randomised Controlled Trial

Background: Heightened stress and anxiety during pregnancy can be potential causes of many complications, including impairment of higher brain cognitive functions.Since, there are no studies that address this complication holistically and yoga is found to be beneficial in many lifestyles related diseases. Aim:To investigate the impact of integrated yoga (IY) intervention on cognitive functions and anxiety among pregnant women.Methods: This was a prospective randomized two armed active control design with supervised practices for both groups.Ninety-six pregnant women (20 to 35 years of age, between 18 and 20weeks of gestation), satisfying the selection criteria were randomized to yoga (50) and control groups (46).Yoga group practiced specific set of integrated yoga and control group, standard antenatal exercises.Pre and post assessments were done at the time of recruitment and at 36 th week.Results: A significant increase in the scores of all variables were observed such as 'Fluency test', (phonemic fluency, category fluency and design fluency, indicators of general verbal functioning, p < 0.001), 'Stroop test' (Stroop effect, measuring brain's information processing ability, p < 0.001) and 'Pregnancy related anxiety questionnaire' (p < 0.001) in yoga group.Mann Whitney U testsshow that the magnitude of change in yoga group was higher than that observed in control group. Conclusion:This study showed that integrated antenatal yoga starting from second trimester helps in improving cognitive functions and reducing anxiety, suggestive of a positive impact of yoga in promoting better information processing in prefrontal cortex.