Determination of Women’s Experience Regarding Non-Pharmacological and Pharmacological Methods for Relieving Labor Pain
Main Point:
Various means of pain relief are used by women during childbirth. These include pharmacological as well as non-pharmacological meas. Thomson et al. (2019) determined various pain-relieving operations for women during child labor, which include massage techniques, relaxation, opioid analgesics, and epidural methods. 58 papers were screened for 24 studies that described women’s negative or positive experiences regarding pain during child labor. Non-pharmacological techniques were found to be less effective than pharmacological techniques for relieving pain.
Published in:
Reproductive Health
Study Further:
Thomson et al. (2019) explored seven different electronic databases for gathering the data and tracking citations and references for authenticity. These include AJOL, Global Index Medicus, EMBASE, AMED, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and MEDLINE. The techniques used for the purpose of analysis are meta-ethnographic and thematic. They accessed the level of confidence through the GRADE-CERQual tool. Review findings were developed for all the pain-relieving methods, which were then re-analyzed. The differences and similarities were highlighted by the researchers for different pain relief methods. Thomson et al. (2019) concluded the mixed experiences of women regarding different pain relief methods. Although pharmacological means are effective in reducing labor pain, they lead to negative effects. Non-pharmacological methods, on the other hand, do not relieve pain but rather assist the woman in developing a good bond with birth supporters and professionals. Hence, overall a valuable reduction in pain scores is achieved when pharmacological methods are combined with non-pharmacological methods. The pain relief score with massage technique, relaxation, opioids, and epidural was observed to be n = 4, n = 8, n = 3, and n =12. Without the pharmacological method, an effective decline in child labor is not possible.
Reference:
Thomson, G., Feeley, C., Moran, V. H., Downe, S., & Oladapo, O. T. (2019). Women’s experiences of pharmacological and non-pharmacological pain relief methods for labour and childbirth: a qualitative systematic review. Reproductive Health, 16(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-019-0735-4
