Risk factors for pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain: A cross-sectional study

The risk factors for pregnancy-associated pelvic girdle pain (PPGP) remain unclear in China, and clinical prediction tools are lacking. To address this gap, a cross-sectional study was conducted involving 416 pregnant and postpartum women from the Guangdong Women and Children Hospital, aiming to investigate PPGP prevalence, identify risk factors, and develop a predictive nomogram. Data were collected via structured questionnaires and medical records. Feature selection was performed using Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression, followed by multivariate logistic regression to identify significant predictors. The model's performance was validated through calibration plots and decision curve analysis. The results demonstrated that the prevalence of PPGP was 58.7%, and the independent predictors of PPGP included previous low back/pelvic girdle pain (LBP/PGP) history (OR=5.33, P<0.001), family PGP history (OR=1.81, P<0.001), miscarriage history (OR=1.62, P=0.03), sitting (OR=1.10, P < 0.05) and walking (OR=0.87, P < 0.05) time per day for the last week. The predictive model showed moderate accuracy with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.735. In summary, this study highlights the high prevalence of PPGP and offers a risk assessment tool for late pregnancy and postpartum women.