Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in Pregnant Women: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most prevalent compression neuropathy of the median nerve, which can appear or exaggerate during pregnancy and sometimes needs surgical procedure to relive its compression. When diagnosed early, it leads to simpler and less dangerous treatments. Objective: To find out the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome in pregnant women and to find out functional limitation in affected pregnant women with carpal tunnel syndrome. Study type, settings & duration: A cross sectional study was conducted at different hospitals of Punjab, Pakistan from December 2019 to May 2020. Methodology: The clinical tests and physical examination for 200 pregnant women were done by using non-probability convenient sampling technique. Primagravida and multigravida women in 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester of pregnancy were included. Fisher’s Exact test was used to determine the associations and Spearman correlation between wrist pain and nature of pain was done. Results: Total pregnant women enrolled were 200. The mean age of the patients was 27.65±4.05 years. Frequency of CTS pain reported in 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimesters was 22.5%, 34.6% and 47.0%, respectively. Out of 200 patients, 80 (40%) were reported CTS. A total of 55 patients in 3rd trimester with CTS, 38 (69.1%) patients were multigravida and 17 (30.9%) patients were primagravida. Correlation coefficient with 95% CI, relationship between side of wrist pain, nature of pain and parity status was significantly (p-value = 0.001, 0.015 and 0.010, respectively). The result revealed that carpal tunnel syndrome is prevalent in pregnant women with classical .......

Keywords

• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• pregnant women
• multigravida
• third trimester
• wrist pain
• alteration of sensation