An mHealth exercise intervention to relieve lumbopelvic pain in Chinese pregnant women

Background Pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain affects over half of pregnant women worldwide. It aggravates labour pain and prolongs labour, it also increases risks of operative births.Interventions are mainly non-invasive, and... [ view full abstract ]

Background

Pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain affects over half of pregnant women worldwide. It aggravates labour pain and prolongs labour, it also increases risks of operative births.Interventions are mainly non-invasive, and exercise is recommended to reduce lumbopelvic pain in women during pregnancy.  However,  women usually complains of time constraint to exercise, and Chinese women are even more reluctant to perform antenatal exercise fearing that active movements may hurt the fetus.  We aim to test the feasibility of a mHealth intervention advocating physical activity in Chinese women of the mid- trimester.

Method

The study is a randomized controlled trial recruiting Chinese women with a singleton pregnancy from 13^th to 24^th weeks’ gestation at the first hospital visit.  Inclusion criteria are women without known contraindication to perform antenatal exercise and who possesses a smartphone.  One hundred and thirty-four consenting women will be randomized and all participants will receive usual care including antenatal education on exercise.  The intervention group will be counseled using an information booklet in local language and a smartphone application with home exercise information and demonstration tailored to our local setting.  Outcomes will be measured at recruitment and 12 week afterwards.

The primary outcome is the pain level from lumbopelvic pain.  Secondary outcomes include the functional disability of pain, level of physical activity, risk of antenatal depression and number of sick-leave days related to the pain.

Discussion    

The study evaluates the effectiveness and feasibility of a culturally sensitive, mHealth exercise intervention in Chinese pregnant women.

References

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