Gestational musculoskeletal disorders and corelated discomforts

Abstract

The morphological and physiological transformations that occur during pregnancy involve hemodynamic, hormonal and biomechanical adaptations that can generate musculoskeletal disorders and reflect in various physical discomforts. Thus, in this research, the objective was to verify the main musculoskeletal alterations associated with the discomforts of pregnancy through a systematic review of the literature. The study was conducted from November of 2018 to February of 2019, by the PICO strategy, with indexes “Physiotherapy” OR “Posture” AND “Discomfort” AND “Biomechanics” OR “Pregnancy” in PubMed, Scielo and Lilacs databases. After exclusion and inclusion criteria, 25/87 localized articles were selected for data extraction. The hemodynamic, hormonal and biomechanical changes of the pregnant woman reflect in the presence of oedema, increased body weight, ligament laxity and postural changes such as head and shoulder anteriority, hyperlordosis, pelvic anteversion, knee hyperextension, base enlargement, difficulty in the gait that lead to the appearance of musculoskeletal disorders, such as neck pain, thoracic duct syndrome, lower back pain, sacroiliac pain, plantar pressure and also the compromise of postural balance. The study of these disorders provides an indication of persistent pain symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum and knowledge of these changes helps to explain why they occur and the reason for the persistence of this sometimes even limiting pain in the pregnant woman. *Correspondence to: Aline do Nascimento Benitez, School of Medical Sciences and Institute of Computing, University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, Tel: + +55 (18) 981993849; E-mail: benitez.alinenascimento@gmail.com