Back Pain Risk Continues After Pregnancy

This section is compiled by Frank M. Painter, D.C.
Send all comments or additions to:   Frankp@chiro.org

NEW YORK (Reuters) –– Women with severe low back pain during pregnancy are at high risk for back pain for more than 10 years after the pregnancy –– and the problem is likely to recur in a subsequent pregnancy, according to a new study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Swedish researchers also report that about 20% of 79 women who had experienced severe low back pain during pregnancy said they refrained from having another child because of fear the back pain would recur in another pregnancy.

The findings come from a new survey of women who had low back pain during pregnancy in 1983–1984, and who participated in a study at that time. In the original survey, the women had reported low back pain severe enough to require sick leave from work. In the new study, a research team led by Dr. Jan Brynhildsen of the University Hospital Linkoping in Sweden sent these women a follow–up questionnaire 12 years later to ascertain the long–term risk of having severe back pain in pregnancy. The team also re–contacted the women who had acted as a control group in the original study –– these were women who had not suffered from back pain in pregnancy.

The researchers found that 63% of the women who had experienced severe back pain in pregnancy had given birth to one or more children in the intervening years. A similar percentage of women (58%) in the control group had also had at least one more child. "Almost all women (94%) with previous disabling low back pain during pregnancy in 1983–1984 also developed low back pain during... (a) subsequent pregnancy," write the researchers. In contrast, less than half (44%) of the control group had back pain in a later pregnancy.

The study findings show that the location of the back pain (sacroiliac joint of lumbar region) "did not affect the long–term prognosis."

The researchers also note that women who worked in physically demanding jobs were at no greater risk for disabling low back pain during subsequent pregnancies. But physically demanding work, together with previous low back pain during pregnancy, increased the risk of low back pain even when not pregnant. .

"These facts, together with the economic costs for the society, make further studies of both mechanisms and preventive therapy necessary," the authors conclude.

Obstetrics & Gynecology 1998; 91: 182–186

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