The effects of core stabilizing exercise in postpartum women with lumbopelvic pain: A systematic review with meta-analysis.

Exercise programmes differed so much in frequency, duration, intensity and supervision that the review cannot say what dose works best. Most trials were judged at some risk of bias, mainly because it is not possible to blind women or therapists to an exercise, so people knew which treatment they were getting. Only trials published in English or Chinese were included and no grey literature was searched, so relevant work in other languages may be missing. Only three of the 15 trials followed women up after the intervention ended, so nothing here tells you whether the improvement lasts. The quality-of-life result rests on five trials and disappears when one quasi-randomised trial is removed, so treat it as provisional. Pelvic floor and abdominal muscle measurements used different tasks and techniques, and there is no agreed gold standard for measuring pelvic floor function, so those results are hard to compare. Heterogeneity was high for pain and disability, and the studies in women with moderate to severe pain were the least consistent.

Funded by an internal grant from Chi Mei Medical Center (CMFHR114029). The authors declare no competing interests. They also state that no generative artificial intelligence tools were used in writing the study.

Do not read the quality-of-life result as a reason to promise patients better quality of life. It was rated low certainty, and when the one quasi-randomised trial was removed the effect went to non-significant (0.35, 95% CI -0.09 to 0.80). Also do not assume a specific dose: the programmes ranged from 4 to 20 weeks and 12 to 60 sessions, so the review cannot say which one is best.