Musculoskeletal pain and symptoms in pregnancy: a descriptive study

Pregnancy-induced hormonal and physiologic changes increase the risk of musculoskeletal problems in pregnancy. The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive look at the musculoskeletal pain and symptoms experienced during pregnancy.

A total of 184 women (mean age 30.9 ± 5.0 years) who gave birth in the obstetrics clinic of a tertiary hospital were included in the study. The participants who had given birth at 37-42 weeks of pregnancy (term pregnancy) and aged over 18 years were selected for participation. Basic demographic and clinical characteristics of the participants including age, body mass index, weight gained during pregnancy, education level, occupation, parity, sex of baby, and exercise habits were collected from the medical chart and face-to-face interviews. Musculoskeletal pain sites were defined as hand-wrist, elbow, shoulder, neck, back, low back, hip, knee, and ankle-foot in a diagram of the human body. The interviews with participants were performed to assess their musculoskeletal pain separately at each trimester follow-up visit.

The most frequent musculoskeletal complaints during pregnancy were low back pain (n = 130, 70.7%), back pain (n = 80, 43.5%), hand-wrist (n = 61, 33.2%) and hip pain (n = 59, 32.1%). The participants experienced musculoskeletal pain most in the third trimester except for elbow, shoulder and neck pain compared with the first and second trimesters (p < 0.05).

The results of the study suggest that numerous musculoskeletal problems may complicate pregnancy especially in the third trimester.