Pelvic low back pain (PLBP) is a complex and multifactorial pathophysiology, common during pregnancy and postpartum. In the last decade, there has been an increase in research on the rehabilitation of PLBP in pregnancy, seeking to test the effectiveness of treatments and understand the causes of this problem. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the peer-reviewed literature on the subject to identify different perspectives and gaps on the available field of knowledge.

To map the scientific production by analyzing published scientific articles on the rehabilitation of pelvic low back pain in pregnancy.

The search ((pregnancy OR pregnant AND women) AND (low AND back AND pain OR backache OR lumbar AND pain) AND (physical AND therapy OR exercise OR rehabilitation)) was conducted in March 2023 in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, filtering for primary articles. We identified 294 records in Web of Science and 1,266 in Scopus. The titles and abstracts of the records were analyzed, and 347 articles were excluded according to the criteria: non-primary articles, no relationship between low back pelvic pain, pregnancy and exercise, and duplicate records were also excluded (n=159). Data were analyzed in R (version 4.2.2) with the aid of the bibliometrix package (version 4.1.2).

They have analyzed 1.054 articles from 1980 to 2023 in 454 journals, with an annual growth rate of 6,6%. They have researched on the topic by 3.686 authors, with 3,9% international collaborations. The journals that have published the most on the topic are BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (n=36) and Spine (n=33). Among the most relevant authors, physical therapist Britt Karin Stuge, a senior researcher at Oslo University Hospital in Norway, was the most productive author on the subject (n = 26). The countries with the most publications in this field of research are the USA (n=239), Sweden (n=158) and Norway (n=138). The most influential study entitled "Prevalence of back pain in pregnancy" by Ostgaard and colleagues (1991), was published in the journal Spine. This is a prospective longitudinal study of 855 pregnant women from the maternity health care system in Gothenburg, Sweden. Due to its long duration, significant sample size, number of questionnaires applied, and observations analyzed, this study is considered the most influential worldwide in this field of research. The authors' keyword co-occurrence analysis resulted in 3 clusters with the themes: low back pain ("low back pain", "pelvic girdle pain", "pelvic pain", "postpartum", "period postpartum", "disability"), pregnancy and rehabilitation ("pregnancy", "exercise", "physical activity", "health women's", "back pain", "rehabilitation").

The bibliometric analysis of primary studies on PLBP rehabilitation in pregnancy revealed a marked increase in the last 10 years, evidencing the growing interest in this subject for the prevention and treatment of this pathology. However, it is important to highlight that most of the evidence comes from developed countries.

Quantitative mapping of the knowledge area can help researchers and health professionals identify more influential experts and sources of information, as well as research gaps in addressing PLBP in pregnancy.