Frequently Asked Questions

Possibly (it depends on your private health insurance plan). Since one of the indications of the PrenaBelt® is musculoskeletal support, your private health insurance may cover the total cost (or a portion of the cost) of the PrenaBelt®. Check with your private health insurance company prior to purchasing the PrenaBelt® because practices and plans vary. See our Insurance Reimbursement page for more details.

Another option that you could try prior to purchasing the PrenaBelt® is checking with your employer about getting your PrenaBelt® purchase reimbursed through a healthcare flexible spending account (FSA), which may cover maternity support belts like the PrenaBelt® under the orthopedic supports category.

Great question! We recently answered this question at a national level in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Check out our article here: Five Things to Know About Sleeping Posture in Pregnancy.

In summary, several large studies have shown that going to sleep on your back during late pregnancy (after 28 weeks’ gestation) is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as late stillbirth and low birth weight.[1,2] As your pregnancy advances, your baby and placenta grow bigger and heavier in your womb. When you are on your back, your womb and its contents rest on some of your major blood vessels, which can compress them and alter the blood flow within you and to your baby. For example, a recent study using advanced MRI techniques demonstrated that, on average, blood flow to the womb is reduced by 24% and oxygen transfer across the placenta is reduced by 6.2% when lying on the back in late pregnancy.[3] These new findings may be one of the reasons why you should avoid sleeping on your back starting at 28 weeks’ gestation.

For an in-depth review of how your body posture impacts your organ systems and your developing baby, see the following reviews that we recently published:

1. Kember AJ, Anderson JL, House SC, Reuter DG, Goergen CJ and Hobson SR (2024), Impact of maternal posture on fetal physiology in human pregnancy: a narrative review. Front. Physiol. 15:1394707. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2024.1394707
2. Kember AJ, Anderson JL, Gorazd NE, House SC, Kerr KE, Torres Loza PA, Reuter DG, Hobson SR and Goergen CJ (2024), Maternal posture-physiology interactions in human pregnancy: a narrative review. Front. Physiol. 15:1370079. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2024.1370079

References:

1. Cronin RS, et al. An Individual Participant Data Meta-analysis of Maternal Going-to-Sleep Position, Interactions with Fetal Vulnerability, and the Risk of Late Stillbirth. The Lancet E Clin Med, 2019.
2. Anderson NH, et al. Association of Supine Going-to-Sleep Position in Late Pregnancy With Reduced Birth Weight: A Secondary Analysis of an Individual Participant Data Meta-analysis. JAMA Netw Open, 2019.
3. Couper S, et al., The effects of maternal position, in late gestation pregnancy, on placental blood flow and oxygenation: an MRI study. J Physiol, 2020.

You can try to avoid sleeping on your back, but this is of unknown effectiveness and is easier said than done. When instructed to avoid sleeping on their back, pregnant individuals can do so moderately well, but this comes at a cost of reduced sleep quality, and the effectiveness of this approach is highly variable (it works for some but doesn’t work for others).[1] Making a conscious effort to avoid sleeping on your back can disturb your sleep, cause anxiety, and result in discomfort. 

A recent study [2] shed light on what happens after pregnant people fall asleep in the third trimester: they will change position 9-10 times per night and get out of bed once per night on average. The majority will spend about 45% of their night in their going-to-sleep posture and 45% of their night in their waking posture in the morning. For those who go to sleep on their back, they will spend about 50% of the night on their back, so these people can be advised against going to sleep on the back. For those who wake in the morning on their back, they spend about 33% of the night on their back, so they may benefit from a positional therapy device like the PrenaBelt®.

With the PrenaBelt®, our goal is to help you by taking the worry out of sleep and making sleep more comfortable. With the PrenaBelt®, you can sleep however you like (including on your back), and the PrenaBelt® will make sure that your pelvis remains tilted toward one side or the other*, which will keep your womb off your major blood vessels. We anticipate that having more options for sleeping posture will also make your sleep more comfortable.

*Note that this is not true of the PrenaBelt® Luna attachment, which works differently. The PrenaBelt® Luna attachment allows you to spend some time sleeping flat on your back. The PrenaBelt® Luna attachment activates your body’s natural mechanism to avoid discomfort during sleep and, through this mechanism, reduces the amount of time you spend sleeping flat on your back.[3,4]

References:

1. Dorrian J, Warland J, Accuracy of Self-Reported Sleep Position in Late Pregnancy. PLoS ONE, 2014.
2. Wilson DL, et al. Polysomnographic analysis of maternal sleep position and its relationship to pregnancy complications and sleep-disordered breathing. Sleep, 2022.
3. Warland J, et al. Modifying maternal sleep position in late pregnancy through positional therapy: A feasibility study. J Clin Sleep Med, 2018.
4. Kember AJ, et al. Modifying maternal sleep position in the third trimester of pregnancy with positional therapy: a randomised pilot trial. BMJ Open, 2018.

Until recently, pregnancy pillows had never been tested and their effectiveness in reducing the time spent sleeping on the back was unknown.

As of September 2024, Wilson et al. completed a randomized cross-over study in 35 participants across 469 nights in the third trimester to assess the effectiveness of a pregnancy pillow in reducing the time spent sleeping on the back compared to regular pillows.[1] The results? Participants actually spent more time sleeping on their back with the pregnancy pillow, 16% (approximately one hour), than they did with regular pillows, 13%! The researchers concluded that there is no evidence to suggest that the adoption of a pregnancy pillow designed to discourage sleeping on the back was effective in late pregnancy.

Below, is a side-by-side comparison of the percentage of time spent sleeping on the back with the PrenaBelt®, a sham-PrenaBelt (a belt that looks and feels like a PrenaBelt® but cannot provide positional therapy),[2] and regular pillows and a pregnancy pillow from Wilson et al.'s study.[1] From left to right, you can see that an average of 3.5% of the night is spent sleeping on the back with the PrenaBelt®. This is significantly lower than the percentage with the sham-PrenaBelt, regular pillows, and a pregnancy pillow, which are all around 15%.

References:

1. Wilson DL, et al. A Position Modification Device for the Prevention of Supine Sleep During Pregnancy: A Randomised Crossover Trial. BJOG Int J Obstet Gynaecol, 2024.
2. Kember AJ, et al. Modifying maternal sleep position in the third trimester of pregnancy with positional therapy: a randomised pilot trial. BMJ Open, 2018.

Sleeping on the back in the third trimester of pregnancy is more common than you may think. According to published studies that have used video-based determination of sleeping position, including two research studies that we published, an average of 56 to 166 minutes per night (9.5-47% of sleep time) is spent sleeping on the back in the third trimester of pregnancy.[1-7] At approximately 120 minutes per night on the back, this translates to over 10,080 minutes (168 hours) on the back over the third trimester.

We and our collaborators have demonstrated that pregnant women underestimate the absolute percentage of time they spend sleeping on the back by an average of 7%.[1] This is best illustrated by an example: When asked about what percentage of the night she thinks she slept on her back, she will say 10%, when it was actually 17% based on a video analysis. In relative terms, her estimate is off by 44%.

Others have shown that self-reported sleeping position in comparison to video-determined position is moderately accurate but with large individual differences in reporting accuracy (up to 3.5 hours difference).[5] In non-pregnant adults, self-reports are moderately accurate only for the "major position" (the position that the person spent the majority of their sleep time in) but not for time spent in different positions for those who changed positions during sleep.[8] In fact, for people who change position more frequently, the accuracy of self-reported major position decreases, and many people are unaware of the fact that they slept in different positions.[8] Furthermore, sleep onset position and waking position are not accurately recalled [3,9] and do not account for all the positions occurring between sleep onset and waking. This accuracy problem makes sense because it is difficult to recollect an unconscious state or state of fluctuating consciousness. Adults even have trouble recollecting their body position while conscious; the best data indicates that 30% of adults incorrectly recollect their position at sleep onset.[9]

References:

1. Kember AJ, et al. Modifying maternal sleep position in the third trimester of pregnancy with positional therapy: a randomised pilot trial. BMJ Open, 2018.
2. Warland J, et al. Modifying maternal sleep position in late pregnancy through positional therapy: A feasibility study. J Clin Sleep Med, 2018.
3. McIntyre JP, et al. A description of sleep behaviour in healthy late pregnancy, and the accuracy of self-reports. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth, 2016.
4. O’Brien L, Warland J. Typical sleep positions in pregnant women. Early Hum Dev, 2014.
5. Dorrian J, Warland J. Accuracy of Self-Reported Sleep Position in Late Pregnancy. PLoS ONE, 2014.
6. Wilson DL, et al.  Decreased sleep efficiency, increased wake after sleep onset and increased cortical arousals in late pregnancy. Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol, 2011.
7. Dunietz GL, et al. Sleep position and breathing in late pregnancy and perinatal outcomes. J Clin Sleep Med, 2020.
8. Yu CKC. Why is Self-Report of Sleep Position Sometimes Unreliable? Sleep Hyp, 2018.
9. Russo K, Bianchi MT. How Reliable Is Self-Reported Body Position during Sleep? J Clin Sleep Med, 2016.

Yes, of course! Ideally, the skin cream should be non-greasy and have time to absorb before you put the PrenaBelt® in direct contact with your skin.

If the hospital allows you to bring pillows, a car seat, and other personal items, you should be able to bring your PrenaBelt®! You may also want to bring your Vela thermal attachment to warm up and use as needed* as you may have access to a microwave on the maternity ward. 

*WARNING: If you receive an epidural, spinal, or combined spinal-epidural (CSE), do not use the Vela Thermal Pack at or below the level of the epidural block because your sensation will be reduced, and this could result in thermal injury to your skin if you warm the Vela too much. In all likelihood, if you have a good and working epidural, you will not have a need for Vela! Do not use Vela again until after you have delivered your baby and your epidural, spinal, or CSE has completely worn off (your entire sensation has returned). As always, do not use Vela if you have any problems with sensation, and ask your healthcare provider should you have any questions.

Absolutely! As noted, if the hospital allows you to bring pillows, a car seat, and other personal items, you should be able to bring your PrenaBelt®! See the photos below, which show how you can configure your PrenaBelt® on your bed in order to cradle your body and keep your pelvis tilted off to the side while resting during labor and birth:

1. Fold the under-pad toward the foot of the bed to expose the underlying fitted bed sheet.
2. Lay your PrenaBelt® face down across the bed and tuck the ends of the mainstraps under the mattress.
3. Attach the Norma Pillow to the PrenaBelt® back panel. If you wish to have your tummy supported, place the Carina Side Pillow on top of the PrenaBelt® as shown in the photo.
4. Finally, fold the under-pad back up toward the head of the bed and over top of the PrenaBelt® and pillows to keep them clean and dry.

There is no evidence for a reduction in core strength due to use of maternity support garments (including maternity belts). Quintero-Rodriguez and Troynikov’s recent systematic review on the effects of maternity support garments (MSGs) used as the sole intervention for alleviation of pain and discomfort during pregnancy concluded that, "wearing MSGs during pregnancy could have beneficial effects in women such as low back pain and pelvic girdle pain alleviation, improvement of functionality and mobility, and reduction of risk of fall during pregnancy; however, the mechanisms of the garments' actions as well as the duration of the garments' effectiveness are not elucidated through the studies."[1] 

Reference: 

1. Quintero Rodriguez C, Troynikov O. The Effect of Maternity Support Garments on Alleviation of Pains and Discomforts during Pregnancy: A Systematic Review. J Pregnancy, 2019.

The PrenaBelt® packaging is plain and simple on purpose. Doing so helps us reduce our carbon footprint, keep our prices low, and focus more on what really matters — designing evidence-based, safe, effective, comfortable, and high-quality products for pregnancy.

Please do not throw away your PrenaBelt® box. If applicable, we ask that you please use it to store your PrenaBelt® between pregnancies.