Level of activity limitations and predictors in women with pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain: Prospective cross-sectional study

Background: For many pregnant women, pelvic girdle pain caused by pregnancy has an impact on their daily living. Women with lumbo-pelvic pain have moderate to severe discomfort that makes daily activities like getting out of a chair, bending, and walking difficult. The aim of this study was to determine the extent of daily activity restrictions and to discover predictors of pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain. Study design: Prospective cross-sectional study. Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was undertaken from January October 2018 to October 29/2019 among 337 gravid mothers with pregnancy-related limbo-pelvic pain. A structured questionnaire adapted from the activity limitation-related pelvic girdle pain questionnaire was used for data collection. Epi-info version 7.1 for data entry and STATA version 14 for statistical analysis were used. Ordinal regression with an odds ratio of 95% confidence interval and p-value < 0.05 were cast-off to assess the association between the outcome and dependent variables. Results: Among 324 pregnant women with pelvic girdle pain 96 (29.6%) had small extent level of activity limitation, 185 (57.1%) had moderate activity limitation, and 43 (13.3%) large extent level of activity limitation. Having previous children (AOR = 0.37, 95% CI:0.14, 0.98), occupation (AOR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.06, 2.95) and taking alcohol (AOR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.19, 0.99) were the independent predictors for activity limitation. Conclusion: Nearly one-third of the participants had a modest degree of activity restriction, while more than half of the pregnant women with PPGP had a moderate to high level of restriction. Previous children, occupation, and alcohol consumption were all independent predictors of activity limitation among pregnant women.