Department of Physical Therapy, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178, USA.
Children's Hospital & Medical Center, 8200 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE 68114, USA.
Gait Posture. 2022 Sep;97:43-47. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2022.07.006. Epub 2022 Jul 11.
Falls are common during pregnancy and present potential for injury to the pregnant individual and the baby.
Do center of pressure characteristics during single leg stance differ between participants during and after pregnancy and nulligravida participants in the presence and absence of visual input?
Nineteen pregnant participants completed testing during the second trimester, the third trimester, and 4-6 months post-partum. Matched, nulligravida females completed testing once. All participants performed single leg stance on a force platform on each limb for up to 20 s with eyes open and with eyes closed. Center of pressure characteristics were compared between pregnant and nulligravida females using three separate 2 × 2 mixed way ANOVAs, one for each pregnancy time point (second trimester, third trimester, and post-partum) with Bonferroni correction.
Pregnant females demonstrated smaller single leg stance time with eyes closed during the third trimester. During the second and third trimester, pregnant participants demonstrated smaller sway and sway velocity across eyes open and eyes closed conditions. During the third trimester and post-partum, pregnant participants demonstrated greater median frequency of the center of pressure data. Pregnant participants also demonstrated smaller sample entropy in the anteroposterior direction during the second and third trimesters and in the mediolateral direction during the second trimester.
The decreased total sway and sway velocity observed during pregnancy may reflect rigidity or a protective strategy during single limb stance. Additionally, center of pressure data were less smooth and more repetitive during pregnancy indicating robust differences in postural control strategies and potentially increased fall risk. Because single limb stance is a component of many activities of daily living, the single limb stance task may have clinical utility for testing or training balance in this population with a goal of decreasing falls.
怀孕期间经常会发生跌倒，对孕妇和胎儿都存在受伤的潜在风险。
在存在和不存在视觉输入的情况下，单腿站立期间的压力中心特征是否会因怀孕参与者和未生育参与者在怀孕期间和之后的不同而有所不同？
19 名孕妇在妊娠中期、晚期和产后 4-6 个月完成测试。匹配的未生育女性仅完成一次测试。所有参与者在力平台上每条腿上进行单腿站立测试，最长 20 秒，睁眼和闭眼。使用三个单独的 2×2 混合方式方差分析，对每个怀孕时间点（妊娠中期、妊娠晚期和产后）进行比较，对怀孕和未生育女性进行比较，使用 Bonferroni 校正。
怀孕女性在妊娠晚期闭眼时单腿站立时间更短。在第二和第三孕期，怀孕参与者在睁眼和闭眼条件下的摆动和摆动速度都更小。在第三孕期和产后，怀孕参与者的压力中心数据的中值频率更大。在第二和第三孕期，怀孕参与者的前后方向的样本熵更小，在第二孕期，在左右方向的样本熵更小。
在怀孕期间观察到的总摆动和摆动速度减小可能反映了单腿站立时的刚性或保护策略。此外，压力中心数据在怀孕期间不太平滑且更具重复性，这表明姿势控制策略存在明显差异，潜在跌倒风险增加。由于单腿站立是许多日常生活活动的组成部分，因此单腿站立任务可能具有在该人群中测试或训练平衡的临床实用性，目标是减少跌倒。
