Lower back pain often caused by multiple pregnancies

For many women, tomorrow's celebration of Mother's Day may include some silent suffering from low back pain, resulting from the physical wear and tear of multiple pregnancies.

While both genders deal with the condition, studies show that women who have two or more children are more likely to deal with the problem than other women, according to Jake Magel, a physical therapist and director of the Intermountain Orthopedic and Spine Therapy Clinic at Intermountain Medical Center.

He and fellow therapist Susan McLaughlin will be available today to answer questions about low back pain and incontinence from 10 a.m. to noon during the free monthly Deseret News/Intermountain Healthcare Hotline. To ask questions about either condition, call toll free at 800-925-8177.

You may also e-mail questions to hotline@desnews.com from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Answers to e-mails will be posted on the paper's Web site next Friday.

As for the frequency of low back pain for women who have two or more children, "We don't know exactly why, but I can say that when a woman gets ready to have a child, her pelvis becomes more flexible and the ligaments become stretched, including the muscles that surround the abdomen," Magel said.

"Often times women may fall into this category where they have good flexibility, but there are areas in the spine that might move too much. They have poor muscle control and need core strengthening exercises to help them manage the pain."

The condition occurs most frequently in mid-life, he said.

Risk factors for both men and women include obesity, smoking, working in physically straining jobs or a sedentary lifestyle. Chronic stooping postures, low job satisfaction, being pregnant, a history of depression and a stressful or monotonous job are also common risk factors.

Nurses and truck drivers are the two professions most likely to experience low back pain, Magel said. "They're bending over a lot, lifting, pulling or pushing, or sitting in a slumped posture without moving or changing positions."

Once people have had low back pain, that's one of the biggest predictors of experiencing it in the future, he said. "Some studies show if you have it once and do nothing about it — if it just goes away on its own and you don't do anything to restore the function of the muscles — the chance of recurrence is 77 percent."