Women wanted for understanding pregnancy back pain

Perth women are being sought for research that attempts to demystify back pain and dysfunction during pregnancy and early motherhood.

The study seeks to provide women with better advice and equipment in caring for both babies and backs.

Occupational bio-mechanist and UWA PhD candidate Adele Stewart says there's been efforts over the past 10–12 years in Australia to reduce back injury and lost work-time due to it.

"Although time lost from back injury by men has reduced by 18 per cent, time lost by women increased by 2 per cent," she says.

"Working with pregnant and post-partum women, I saw firsthand that their experience of back pain and back injury was unreasonably high—with almost all the women I worked with experiencing back pain at some stage in early motherhood and from as early as the first trimester.

"With so many women affected it's often considered a normal part of pregnancy when perhaps we are setting ourselves up during that period for ongoing back dysfunction and chronic back issues."

Relaxin's role in back pain questioned

Run through UWA's School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health the study will be the first to examine the temporal correlation between back pain, range of motion, strength and curvature, and the hormones present at high levels during pregnancy, including serum relaxin.

"Although in early pregnancy there's a 10 to 100 fold increase in serum relaxin, there haven't been a lot of people who've considered its effects in pregnancy other than its role in loosening the pelvic joints," she says.

"Relaxin has been associated with sports-related injuries when present at high levels in normal menstrual cycle of non-pregnant women.

"It occurred to me that relaxin could also be having an effect on the vertebral joints of the lower back."

Call for study participants

Ms Stewart hopes the study will give a baseline understanding of back pain and dysfunction as it changes across pregnancy, allowing informed prevention of back injury through exercise, advice on managing back dysfunction and custom-designed furniture and equipment for use in the care of young children.

"We can't prescribe with any knowledge what pregnant women should or shouldn't be doing until we actually know what's happening with the body," she says.

Ms Stewart is seeking healthy women aged 20–40 who have never been pregnant, or are in their first trimester of their first pregnancy, or who are new mum's of children aged 3–6 months to participate.

More information:
Anyone interested can email Ms Stewart adele.stewart@research.uwa.edu.au.

Provided by Science Network WA