Preventing back pain during pregnancy is a key task for osteopathic clinicians. Sometimes referred to as ‘pregnancy related peripartum pelvic pain’ (PRPP) in which both low back and pelvic pain feature, the condition arises for a variety of reasons related to pregnancy, possibly associated with changes in posture, activity, weight and centre of mass. In addition, questions arise concerning the effects of hormonal changes during pregnancy and the consequences of such changes on joints and ligaments around joints, and whether such changes cause PRPP. A recent study in Taiwanese women (Tzeng & Su 2008) suggest that as much as 50% of women suffer from low back pain in pregnancy, a figure that finds agreement with other earlier studies, which means this is a troublesomely large problem.

Key advice to sufferers is to maintain comfortable activity, preferably aquatic based and seek treatment. Comfort is the pre-eminent aim whist maintaining activity. An important addition to this advice is that standarised osteopathic treatment appears to be an effective non-medication intervention, both in terms of acute back pain in pregnancy as well as in postpartum back pain after pregnancy. These findings were recently published in the International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine as abstracts from the 7th International Conference on Advances in Osteopathic Medicine Research, held in Bradenton, Florida USA in September 2008. Serial osteopathic manipulative treatment was reported to relieve pain and enhance function immediately, and have a beneficial effect that persisted over weeks, when followed up by researchers.

So, hands-on, focused osteopathic care at Dunedin Osteopathic Clinic is a which way in which osteopathic treatment helps patients, in this case by controlling, relieving and managing difficult symptoms without medication and where possible, actually preventing back pain during pregnancy.