disability and factors associated with gestational low back pain purpose to determine the prevalence of low back pain in pregnant women and to describe its characteristics and associated factorsmethods the participants were 269 pregnant women in the first to the third trimester of pregnancy seen at the obstetrics outpatient clinic of a university hospital in the brazilian northeast we applied a questionnaire in order to obtain data regarding sociodemographic variables obstetric history and characteristics of low back pain as well as the oswestry and rolland morris questionnaires to assess disability and a visual analog pain scale to measure pain intensityresults the prevalence of low back pain was 73 with the following characteristics stabbing 62316 irradiation 162826 of daily frequency 105535 usually starting at night 83423 when it was also more intense 122622 and lasting about 1 hour in 118 women 602 pain improved with rest 10051 worsened when the women stood or sat for a long time 86439 and when they did housework 85434 the level of disability ranged from mild to moderate in most cases urinary tract infection p002 and the scores of the oswestry and rolland morris questionnaires showed significant association with the visual analogue pain scaleconclusion the prevalence of back pain among pregnant women is high with varying characteristics the degree of disability is usually moderate and the presence of urinary infection and higher disability scores were associated with greater intensity of low back pain