409148

Effect of Stretching Exercises on Muscle Cramps for Pregnant Women.

Article

Last updated: 01 Feb 2025

Subjects

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Tags

Community health nursing

Abstract

Background: Muscle cramps during pregnancy are a common discomfort characterized by involuntary, painful contractions of muscle groups that usually experienced by approximately half of all expecting pregnant women but the majority of muscle cramps during pregnancy occur in the lower extremities particularly in the calf muscles. Aim: To evaluate the effect of stretching exercises program for pregnant women.  Design: A quasi-experimental design was utilized in carrying out this study.  Setting: The study was conducted at Governmental Health Center (HC) Benha City in Qalyubia, Egypt. Sample: A purposive sample was used; it included 375 pregnant women attended to previous setting for six months. Tools: (Tool I): A structured-interviewing questionnaire to assess studied pregnant women's which include A) Demographic characteristics, B)Knowledge of pregnant women regarding muscle cramps and stretching exercises, and C) Reported practice for pregnant women regarding applying stretching exercises,(Tool II):Cramp questionnaire chart. Results: 48.8% of the studied pregnant women aged from 20- ˂ 30 years old with a mean age of 31.71±5.40 years, 22.7% of the studied women had good knowledge regarding muscle cramps at pre-program phase compared to 69.0% at post-program phase, also shows that 14.4% of the studied pregnant women had good knowledge regarding stretching exercises at pre-program phase compared to 65.3% at post-program phase and  practices regarding  stretching exercises demonstrates that 20% of the studied pregnant women had satisfactory practices regarding neck stretching exercise at pre-program compared to 85.6% at post-program respectively. With a highly statistical significant difference between the results of post-program compared to pre-program in favor of post-program regarding all domains of the studied pregnant women' practices (p≤0.001) and 48.0% of studied pregnant women had severe pain at pre-program compared to 14.4% of them at post-program phases. Conclusion: Stretching exercises program succeed to decrease muscle cramps pain among pregnant women and there was a highly statistically significant positive correlation between the studied pregnant women's total knowledge score and all practices domains score at pre and post-program phase with p≤0.001. Recommendation: Continuous health educational program about stretching exercises to relieve muscle cramps among pregnant women.

DOI

10.21608/jnsbu.2025.409148

Keywords

Muscle cramps, Pregnant women, and Stretching exercises

Authors

First Name

Aya

Last Name

Mohamed Ali

MiddleName

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Affiliation

B.Sc. Nursing, (2016), Menoufia University, Specialist Nursing at Berket El Sabea Secondary Nursing School

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Hedya

Last Name

Fathy Mohy El-Deen

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Assist. Professor of Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Benha University, Egypt.

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Huda

Last Name

Abdallah Moursi Afify

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Assist. Professor of Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Benha University, Egypt.

Email

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City

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Orcid

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Volume

6

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

52774

Issue Date

2025-01-01

Receive Date

2025-01-30

Publish Date

2025-01-01

Page Start

227

Page End

241

Print ISSN

2682-3934

Online ISSN

2735-5802

Link

https://jnsbu.journals.ekb.eg/article_409148.html

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http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=409148

Order

409,148

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Journal of Nursing Science Benha University

Publication Link

https://jnsbu.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Effect of Stretching Exercises on Muscle Cramps for Pregnant Women.

Details

Type

Article

Created At

01 Feb 2025