BACKGROUND: Many women suffer from low back pain (LBP) and pelvic girdle pain (PGP) during pregnancy, but there is limited evidence of effective primary and secondary preventive strategies. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether a group based exercise program can reduce the prevalence and severity of LBP and PGP in pregnant women. DESIGN: An observer blinded randomized controlled trail with equal assignments to intervention or control group. SETTING: Two primary care maternity units in two suburban municipalities in the south eastern part of Norway. PATIENTS: 257 healthy pregnant women between 18 to 40 years before gestation week 20. INTERVENTION: The intervention group received supervised exercises in groups once a week, while the control group received standard care. MEASUREMENTS: The main outcome measures were self reported LBP or PGP. Secondary outcome measures included pain intensity in the morning and evening, disability and SF-8 Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores. Follow up measurements were performed in gestation weeks 24, 28, 32 and 36. RESULTS: Overall there was no effect of the program on the prevalence of PGP (odds ratio (95% CI)) 1.03 (0.66 to 1.59) for LBP 0.77 (0.50 to 1.19). For the secondary outcomes, the estimated mean differences (95%CI) between the groups were -0.4 (-0.8 to 0.1) in pain intensity morning, -0.4 (-1.0 to 0.2) in pain intensity evening, -1.0 (-2.2 to 0.0) in disability, 1.8 (0.0 to 3.7) in SF-8 PCS and -0.6 (-2.2 to 1.4) SF-8 MCS. LIMITATIONS: Due to low statistical power the estimates for the primary outcomes are imprecise. CONCLUSIONS: Supervised group exercise did not reduce the prevalence of LBP or PGP in pregnancy.

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