The Effect of Acupressure on Reducing the Labor Pain: A Review Study in Iran

Introduction: Pain associated with labor has been described as one of the most intense of pain that can be experienced. The methods of pain management are mainly divided into pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods. The use of non-pharmacological pain methods is preferable because of simple, inexpensive, non-invasive, and lack of influence on the childbirth process and the absence of maternal and fetal side effects. Acupressure is one of the traditional Chinese medicine techniques which is based on fundamental principle of activation of acupoints across the meridians. Acupressure is the noninvasive, essay and safe manual method.Materials and Methods: The present study is a review of clinical trials conducted in Iran. The content required was obtained by reviewing Persian articles. The key words used were acupressure and labor pain . Totally, 16 papers were finally selected and analysed.Findings: The acupoints used to reduce labor pain in these articles were included:SP6 point (3 papers), LI4 point (6 articles), comparison of BL32 and GB21 (1 article), comparison of GB21 and SP6 (2 articles), uriculotherapy (1 article), comparison of SP6 and reflexology (1 article), comparisons of SP6 and LI4 (2 articles). The sample size of pregnant women in the articles were among 60 to 150. A review of the literature showed that acupressure significantly reduced pain and did not show any effect on the two studies, but did not show significant differences between the two groups in comparative studies.Conclusion: The results of the study showed that 87% of the articles used have the effect of acupressure in reducing labor pain which is recommended as a good supplement to labor pain relief. In addition midwives should be trained to apply the acupressure method.

Keywords:

Acupressure- Labor pain