Original researchCharacterization of the relationship between joint laxity and maternal hormones in pregnancy
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Forty-six healthy low-risk pregnant women presenting to the Mayo Medical Center prenatal clinic in the first trimester with a documented singleton intrauterine pregnancy were prospectively recruited for this Institutional Review Board-approved longitudinal observational study of peripheral joint laxity between April 1997 and April 1998. Women with a history of joint problems (systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, wrist fracture, etc) or with subsequent
Results
Forty-six women were initially enrolled for this prospective investigation of joint laxity. Of the initial women, 11 (24%) women were excluded from the longitudinal investigation after first-trimester pregnancy loss. Table 1 depicts the patient demographics for the study cohort. Mean delivery gestational age for the study cohort was 39.7 ± 0.2 weeks. Mean wrist flexion-extension (Figure 1, top) and medial-lateral deviation (Figure 1, bottom) joint laxity increased as gestation progressed, with
Discussion
This study, along with several previous investigations,12, 14, 15 confirms that peripheral joint laxity generally increases over the course of pregnancy and in the postpartum period. We did not confirm a significant association between increasing laxity and parity, maternal age, gestational age at birth, or race. Unique to this study is the use of a laxitometer designed and tested by the Mayo Orthopedics Biomechanics Department. This device is accurate in detecting minimal changes in wrist
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