The association between musculoskeletal pain during pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analyses

Objective: To systematically investigate the association between musculoskeletal pain during pregnancy and birth outcomes including caesarean section, newborn birthweight, newborn birth length, and gestational age at birth.

Methods: Medline, Embase, Web of Science, Cinahl and Scopus were systematically searched to identify eligible studies. Odds ratios, mean differences, and confidence intervals were used to describe results. Risk of Bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for observational studies. GRADE (The Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) was used to assess the quality of each outcome.

Results: Seven studies were included with a total population of 85,991 participants. There is low- quality evidence that pregnant women with musculoskeletal pain had 1.59 greater odds to experience delivery by caesarean section compared to those without musculoskeletal pain ([OR] 1.59, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.09 to 2.31). Both newborn birth weight (Mean Difference [MD] 77.79 g, 95 % [CI] -23.09 to 178.67) and newborn birth length ([MD] 0.55 cm, 95 % [CI] -0.47 to 1.56) were not affected by musculoskeletal pain, with very low-quality and low-quality evidence, respectively. There was moderate evidence that pregnant women with musculoskeletal pain had shorter gestational age (weeks), although the effect was small and possibly not clinically relevant ([MD] -0.41, 95 % [CI] -0.41 to -0.07).

Conclusion: Pregnant women experiencing musculoskeletal pain are at greater odds of delivering their babies via caesarean than those without musculoskeletal pain, however, musculoskeletal pain during pregnancy does not appear to affect newborn birth weight, length, or gestational age at birth.