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Neck pain is a common complaint among postpartum women, arising from prolonged poor posture during feeding and infant care. This randomised clinical trial investigated whether adding either Tuina massage or positional release technique to standard postural correction exercises could improve outcomes beyond exercises alone in sixty postpartum women with neck dysfunction.
Participants were divided into three groups over four weeks. The control group performed postural correction exercises only, while the other two groups had either positional release technique or Tuina added to the same exercise programme. Outcomes measured included pain intensity using a visual analogue scale, neck disability using the Neck Disability Index, and upper trapezius muscle activity assessed through surface electromyography — specifically normalised root mean square and median frequency values.
All three groups showed meaningful improvements over time. However, both manual therapy groups reduced pain significantly more than the exercise-only group. Notably, the Tuina group showed greater reductions in pain intensity compared with the positional release group, and also demonstrated significantly greater improvements in upper trapezius median frequency — an electromyographic marker associated with reduced muscle fatigue — compared with both other groups. The positional release group did not differ significantly from the control group on this electromyographic measure.
The authors acknowledge limitations including the short four-week treatment period and the absence of long-term follow-up data.
Conclusion: Tuina massage, when added to postural correction exercises, produced superior improvements in pain and upper trapezius muscle function compared with positional release technique or exercises alone in postpartum women with neck pain.
Source: Elabd AM, Marwan YN, Elabd OM and colleagues. Physiotherapy research international : the journal for researchers and clinicians in physical therapy (2026). View on PubMed (PMID 42566253) · doi:10.1002/pri.70313
