Abstract

Purpose: This study was undertaken to evaluate the treatment by acupuncture, under real-life conditions, in the main non-obstetrical complaints in pregnancy.

Methods: One hundred pregnant women from 15 to 39 years, 15 to 30 weeks of pregnancy, allocated by chance into two groups to be conventionally treated by their obstetrics (control group) in the Santa Casa de São José do Rio Preto or to receive acupuncture along the conventional treatment (study group), for  a period of eight weeks. The main outcome was pain or the main symptom, using a Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) from 0 to 10. As secondary outcomes it was evaluated the use of medication and quality of life, in this case with an ad hoc 16-item questionnaire, observing the effects of acupuncture in the performance of physical, physiological and mental activities, always using the NRS. Patients were treated by traditional acupuncture using pre-programmed points for each complaint and up to four optional points to take care of individual’s characteristics. Two sample t-tests were used to parametric variables and when recommended the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis and Mood´s test for medians were used. Changes over time in the NRS assessments were analyzed by Fisher exact test and when necessary, repeated measures ANOVA was applied to test effects of time, groups and interaction time-groups. A p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Twenty one women dropped out and data refer to 39 patients in case group and 40 in control group. The most important non-obstetrical complaints found were: low-back and pelvic pain, mild and moderate emotional complaints, headache, gastro-oesophageal reflux, musculoskeletal pain, insomnia, nauseas and vomits, intestinal problems and respiratory allergy. With the exception of nauseas and vomits and respiratory allergy, in all the other complaints the treated group had significant improvements when compared to the control group. The study group took less paracetamol, hyosine-N-butylbromide and antacids than the control group. In the 16 analyzed items in the quality of life questionnaire, the case group had positive answers in 13. Conclusions: Acupuncture according to our population and methodology, demonstrated to be effective in reducing the most part of found complaints, lead the study group to take less medication and helped to increase the quality of life in the treated pregnant women.