Authors
Serap Öztürk Altınayak, Betül Uzun Özer, Özlem Arı, Hava Özkan
Published in
BMC pregnancy and childbirth. Jul 21, 2026. Epub Jul 21, 2026.
Abstract
This study aimed to examine the effect of a pregnancy pillow used in the last trimester on fatigue and comfort in pregnant women.
This study used an RCT design. The study was conducted with 77 primiparous pregnant women (39 intervention, 38 control) who met the inclusion criteria and were admitted to the obstetrics outpatient clinic of a university hospital in the Black Sea region. The pregnant women were randomly assigned to groups using "Random Allocation Software". Data were collected through a Personal Information Form, the Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS), and the Prenatal Comfort Scale (PCS). The Pearson chi-square test, Yates corrected chi-square test, Fisher's Exact test, Fisher-Freeman-Halton test, Robust Mixed ANOVA, and partial eta-squared (η²) values were employed for effect size calculations and reported with 95% confidence intervals. The Phi coefficient (φ) and Cramer's V were computed to measure the effect size for categorical analysis. The correlation coefficient (r) and Cohen's d were employed to measure the effect size of both the Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests. In all analyses, the statistical significance level was considered to be p < 0.05.
In the intervention group, CFS scores significantly decreased from 19.38 ± 6.89 to 7.18 ± 5.21 and (p < 0.05), while PCS scores significantly increased from 53.21 ± 10.25 to 69.18 ± 6.19 a significant difference was found in the within-group comparison (p < 0.05). Conversely, in the control group, CFS scores significantly increased from 14.84 ± 6.25 to 28.84 ± 5.59 (p < 0.05), whereas PCS scores significantly decreased from 60.47 ± 12.28 to 40.58 ± 8.45 in the within-group comparison (p < 0.05). Robust regression analysis revealed that the post-test comfort score in the intervention group was 29.695 points higher than in the control group (p < 0.001). The post-test total fatigue score of the intervention group was 23.687 points less than that of the control group (p < 0.001).
The study findings indicated that using a pregnancy pillow during gestation enhanced comfort and decreased fatigue. Consequently, it can be stated that a pregnancy pillow may aid in preventing or alleviating fatigue during gestation.
PMID:
42477633
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 21 Jul 2026.
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