What is Bed rest?

Bed rest is a medical treatment in which a person lies in bed for most of some period of time to gain health benefits. Bed rest refers to voluntarily lying in bed as a treatment, and not being confined to bed because of a health impairment which restricts a person from leaving the bed. The practice is still commonly used for an array of conditions although a 1999 systematic review found no benefits in any of the 17 conditions for which it had been prescribed.

Bed rest is especially used when prescribed or chosen. Even though most patients in hospitals spend most of their time in the hospital beds, bed rest more often refers to an extended period of recumbence at home. In the United States of America, nearly 20% of pregnant women have some degree of restricted activity prescribed at some point during pregnancy despite the growing volume of data showing it to be dangerous, causing some experts to call its use "unethical".