Background: Many women have low back pain (LBP) or pelvic girdle pain (PGP) during pregnancy, but there is limited evidence of effective primary and secondary preventive strategies.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a group-based exercise program can reduce the prevalence and severity of LBP and PGP in pregnant women.
Design: An observer-blinded randomized controlled trial with equal assignments to a training group and a control group was conducted.
Setting: The study was conducted in primary care maternity units in 2 suburban municipalities in the southeastern part of Norway.
Patients: The participants were 257 pregnant women who were healthy and between 18 and 40 years of age before gestation week 20.
Intervention: The training group received supervised exercises in groups once a week, and the control group received standard care.
Measurements: The main outcome measures were self-reported LBP and self-reported PGP. Secondary outcome measures were pain intensity in the morning and evening, disability, and 8-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-8) Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores. Follow-up measurements were performed at gestation weeks 24, 28, 32, and 36.
Results: Overall, there was no effect of the program on the prevalence of PGP (odds ratio = 1.03, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.66 to 1.59) or LBP (odds ratio = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.50 to 1.19). For the secondary outcomes, the estimated mean differences between the groups were -0.4 (95% CI = -0.8 to 0.1) for pain intensity in the morning, -0.4 (95% CI = -1.0 to 0.2) for pain intensity in the evening, -1.0 (95% CI = -2.2 to 0.0) for disability, 1.8 (95% CI = 0.0 to 3.7) for the SF-8 PCS, and -0.6 (95% CI = -2.2 to 1.4) for the SF-8 MCS.
Limitations: Due to low statistical power, the estimates for the primary outcomes are imprecise.
Conclusions: Supervised group exercise did not reduce the prevalence of LBP or PGP in pregnancy.