Treatment of Lower Back Pain during Pregnancy

Pelvic Girdle Supports to help you with your Pregnancy and Back Pain

Up to 50% of women will experience pelvic girdle pain or lower back pain during pregnancy. Treatment to help you with your pregnancy back pain often includes advice and information about posture when pregnant and exercises to help strengthen the core or abdominal muscles. Commonly pelvic girdle braces or supports are often suggested too.

Using sacroiliac supports and pregnancy braces

These are the two most common types of supports used to help reduce lower back pain during pregnancy. This type on the left supports the lower back and the one on the right is helpful for pelvic girdle pain and sacroiliac joint pain in pregnancy.

Lower Back Support	Pelvic Girdle and Sacroiliac joint support

Do these supports and Pelvic Girdle Straps help relieve lower back pain during pregnancy?

A research trial (Kalus, Kornman & Quinlivan 2008) looked at a largish (115) group of pregnant women between 20 and 36 weeks of pregnancy with lower back or sacroiliac pain. They compared two different types of pelvic support.

• One half of the group was given tubigrip, which is standard issue in the UK
  
  
• the other half were given something called a bellybra (see store* below) which is a particular type of lower back support designed for pregnant women.

The authors found that both types of support were helpful at reducing lower back pain during pregnancy and that the women using them felt less pain.

The group in the bellybra group did a little better than the tubigrip group. They had less back pain when sleeping, getting up from a sitting position and walking than the tubigrip group.

Another more recent review (Ho et al 2009) has looked at several research trials studying the use of pelvic supports in pregnancy and didn't find enough conclusive evidence that they work. However, this paper did say that there was some promising findings around potentially helpful stability changes when the belts were used that needed more investigation.

Are there any side effects from wearing this type of support?

The same study by Ho et al (2009) reported the main side effects experienced by some mothers as increased pain, fetal heart rate changes, skin irritation and discomfort.

Should you wear one?

This is difficult to answer for certain as there is so much variability between pregnant women. I do know that my women's health colleagues often issue tubigrip and sacroiliac joint supports to the mums they see with lower back pain during pregnancy. I would discuss it with your midwife or physiotherapist and ask them to help you to decide if this is right for you and to help you select the correct support for you. You will need to decide if you need more lower back support or more sacroiliac joint support.

References

Kalus, S.M., Kornman, L.H. & Quinlivan, J.A., 2008. Managing back pain in pregnancy using a support garment: a randomised trial. BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, 115(1), p.68-75.

Ho, S.S.M. et al., 2009. Effectiveness of maternity support belts in reducing low back pain during pregnancy: a review. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18 (11), 1523-1532.

Lower Back Pain Toolkit Home Page

23-Aug-2010