The widespread practice of bed rest is based on the common sense that strenuous work or play may make a woman have contractions and go into labor prematurely. However, the best (and only) answer to the question of whether bed rest actually works for preterm labor comes from four researchers who conducted a systematic review of the literature, looking for studies investigating what happened to women at high risk of giving birth prematurely and to their babies after the pregnant women were put on bed rest. The authors could only find one study that really investigated this question. It was a large study of 1,266 women, and it showed that bed rest did not prevent preterm births.
We recognize that this assertion is going to be met with a lot of angry responses. However, the authors of the systematic review concluded, as do we, that there is no evidence to support bed rest to prevent preterm birth. We have no evidence that it works, and we have one pretty large study in which it didn’t seem to work. While we can’t prove that bed rest does not help certain women, we are far from being able to prove that it does help.
Doctors and pregnant women afraid of preterm labor also need to remember that bed rest is not necessarily completely harmless; it can cause problems like deconditioning of the muscles. In addition, unnecessarily preventing mothers from working can create significant problems for the family’s finances, or the mother’s mental well-being.