Women allocated to the uterine massage group will be provided with 2 minutes of trans-abdominal uterine massage starting promptly after placental delivery.

Women allocated to the uterine compression group will be provided with 2 minutes of sustained trans-abdominal uterine compression starting promptly after placental delivery.

The massage will be performed as follows: palpating the uterine fundus, manually stimulating the fundus and the whole body of the uterus using fingers and palms steadily and repetitively.

Collection of lost blood will be initiated immediately after delivery of the neonate by putting a drape under the woman's buttocks. Blood collected will be weighed on an electronic scale together with the drape, and the amount will be recorded in grams after subtracting the weight of the drape. The amount of blood loss will be recorded 30 mins after delivery of the neonate. The amount of lost blood in grams will be converted to volume by dividing by 1.06 (blood density in g/mL) for the analysis.

Maternal discomfort and pain intensity will be evaluated after the intervention using a visual analogue scale (VAS), which consists of a two-sided rule with a 10 cm vertical or horizontal line linking two points, at one extreme indicating a total absence of pain and at the other the worst pain imaginable. The women will be required to mark a spot on the line corresponding to the intensity of their pain at that particular time on a possible scale of 0 to 10.