ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT
PREGNANCY BEDREST
Does Bed Rest Work? What is the evidence?
Bed rest is often used to treat complications of pregnancy.
Bed Rest treatment is based on the idea that 1) it works, and
2) it is safe, that is, no serious side effects result from
bed rest. People often ask whether bed rest works. The short
answer is that we don’t know. Research evidence has not
found that bed rest prevents preterm birth or improves infant
birth weight. Furthermore, researchers have found that bed rest
during pregnancy causes many side effects. See Side
Effects of bed rest.
Using bed rest to treat pregnancy complications began several
decades ago. Use of bed rest was based on the idea that rest
is good for you. People also thought that perhaps getting weight
off the feet would also reduce weight and stress on the uterus
and cervix. However there is no evidence that this is true.
About the same time that bed rest began to be used health care
providers (doctors and nurses) began to get other types of patients
out of bed early. People who had surgery, a heart attack, or
elderly patients were encouraged not to stay in bed. Rather
they were encouraged to move around. The reason for this change
was because aerospace scientists had been studying bed rest
side effects for decades. They do this because the side effects
of bed rest are almost identical to the effects of space flight.
These researchers found that bed rest causes many negative side
effects. Therefore, they were the first scientists to identify
that lying around in bed for long periods is not healthy. (“Astronauts
and Pregnancy Bed Rest”)
Since that time researchers in obstetrics began to conduct studies
to find out whether bed rest treatment prevented pregnancy complications.
Initial studies conducted 20 + years ago found that bed rest
was effective. However, we now know that these studies were
not well planned and conducted. Instead this research contained
flaws.(Maloni
& Kasper, 1991) Recent research called random controlled
clinical trials (RCTs) has fewer flaws. New RCTs compared women
in the hospital on bed rest with women who continued to walk
and be at home. Women at home also made extra regular visits
to their doctors and were admitted to the hospital but only
if needed. The studies found that there was no difference between
the two groups. Bed rest in hospital did not improve infant
birth weight, age of the baby at birth, prevent miscarriage,
or reduce the low birth weight, preterm birth or fetal/infant
death, or suspected impaired fetal growth. Furthermore, there
is no research about whether bed rest is effective for treating
placenta previa, preterm rupture of membranes and other obstetric
diagnosis. Thus, there is either no evidence to support bed
rest treatment or evidence that it is ineffective. However,
many doctors still prescribe bed rest since they believe it
works, or it is not clear to them whether it works. Many women
also believe that bed rest works because they stayed in bed
and had a healthy term baby. However, there is no way of knowing
if the baby had been born at term even if women had walked around.
While research evidence indicates that bed rest does not work,
further research is needed.
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