Sudden joint and extremity pain in pregnancy.

To diagnosis sudden joint and extremity pain in pregnancy, the obstetrician must call upon information from several disciplines, including obstetrics, internal medicine, neurology, and orthopedics. The initial evaluation of the patient should begin with a generalized assessment, and more distant causes of the pain should be ruled out as possible causes are considered, evaluated, and rejected. This article discusses the importance of medical history, physical examination, laboratory studies, synovial fluid analysis, and immunologic studies to aid in the diagnosis of pain, as well as common presentations of musculoskeletal pain in pregnancy.