Cindy Nelson of Birmingham, Ala., was dedicated to her workout routine before she got pregnant with her son Conner, now 2. But it was when she got pregnant that she became a fanatic.

"I had been with my sister when she went through labor and I found it utterly terrifying," says Nelson. "It was so much more difficult than she had been led to believe it would be. I knew I couldn't completely avoid it, but I wanted to try to be as much in control as possible. I really felt like being physically strong would be a big component of that control."

When Nelson did finally go through labor, hers went much more smoothly than her sister's had. Whether or not that had to do with her commitment to keeping her strength up, she doesn't know. What she does know is that afterward both she and the baby seemed to bounce back much more quickly than most women she knows who gave birth around the same time.

"I have two friends who had their babies within a month of mine," says Nelson. "At the six week mark, I was the only one who could actually fit into some of my pre-pregnancy clothes, and my baby was the only one that was sleeping for good stretches of time. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I'm planning to get pregnant again within the next six months and I'm already stepping up my strength training because I think it made a difference."

Research backs up Nelson's intuition. In his book Exercising Through Your Pregnancy (Addicus Books, 2002), Dr. James Clapp says studies show babies of women who exercise during pregnancy tolerate the stress of contractions better than the babies of women who stopped exercising during their pregnancies. These babies also seemed more mature at birth, with superior abilities to self-soothe and be more alert.

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