EVALUATION OF POSTURAL BALANCE IN THIRD TRIMESTER PREGNANCY

Abstract

Background: Pregnancy is a state of various physiological and anatomical changes in a female's body. The increasing body weight leads to the shift in COG and increase in abdominal contents leading to reduced stability and increased use of visual cues which occur in pregnant females as pregnancy advances. Several physiological responses to pregnancy diminish the body's ability to maintain adequate balance, and place the women at a higher risk of injury and falls. Thus assessment for postural stability is very important to prevent such complications. Objective: To evaluate postural balance in third trimester pregnant females using Four square step test. Materials and methodology: Study was cross sectional observational study. Data was collected by convenient sampling method .60 Healthy women, 30 pregnant and 30 non-pregnant, of age group 20-30 years were selected. Evaluation of postural stability was done using 4 square step test (FSST). The mean of two time trial (in seconds) was noted. The data was collected and analysed using paired t-test. Results: There was statistically significant difference in mean time taken to complete the test between pregnant group and non-pregnant group. (p<0.05) Conclusion: Thus, our study showed that pregnant females took longer time to complete the postural balance test.