Extract
Low-back pain is common during pregnancy, particularly in the third
trimester1. While
the prevalence of symptomatic lumbar disc herniation is rare (approximately
one in 10,000 pregnancies), cauda equina syndrome due to lumbar disc
herniation during pregnancy is even
rarer2-6.
We are aware of only two case reports of this diagnostic combination in the
medical literature. In one of these reports, a twenty-nine-year-old woman
underwent an L5-S1 discectomy in her twenty-fourth week of
pregnancy6. At the
six-week postoperative follow-up examination, she had mildly decreased
sensation in the sacral area but no pain or urinary retention. In their case
series of three patients, Brown and
Levi4 described one
patient with cauda equina syndrome and two patients with a severe neurologic
deficit due to lumbar disc herniation during pregnancy. All three patients
demonstrated a substantial decrease in symptoms following disc surgery during
pregnancy, and all delivered full-term healthy babies.