WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Laxmi Jha Thakur, Jyoti Arora, Ekjot Kaur and Gopal Singh Charan*

ABSTRACT

Introduction: A woman's body undergoes profound physiological changes during pregnancy. It does not impact the cardiovascular, endocrine, or urinary systems, but it does involve muscular and skeletal problems with a predetermined effect on the skeletal system. Various hormone changes due to increased body mass, size, and uterine position contribute to a shift in the center of gravity, resulting in an increase in static and dynamic force affecting the skeletal system. Materials and Methods: A quasi-experimental design was adopted to assess the effectiveness of back stretch exercises on back pain among antenatal mothers. A total of 160 antenatal mothers (80 antenatal mothers in the experimental and 80 antenatal mothers in the control group) were involved through purposive sampling that met inclusion criteria. The data were collected from antenatal mothers using baseline information proforma and standardized research instrument Numeric rating pain scale. The researcher demonstrated back stretch exercises for 20 minutes and a return demonstration was done by the third-trimester antenatal mothers. In the control group as per conventional methods. The investigator conducted the post-test by visual analog pain scale for both groups. Informed consent was obtained. Confidentiality and anonymity were maintained during and after data collection. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 26. Results: The study revealed that mean pain scores in posttest were 4.787±1.489 and 2.676±1.133 in control and experimental group. The mean difference was 2112 and obtained t-value was 8.571 which was more than table value (1.96). The calculated p-value was < 0.001 which was highly significant. Therefore, we concluded that with back stretch exercise intervention, mean back pain scores in posttest (control and experimental group) were significantly different. The intervention was significantly effective in decline the level of back pain among antenatal mothers. Conclusion: The study concluded that the back stretch exercises found significantly effective to reduce pain of antenatal mothers. The implementation of the back stretch exercises among antenatal mothers may be done in maternal health OPD for better management of backache during pregnancy.

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