Endorphin at Labor Pain and Acupressure

The Impact of Different Acupressure Procedures Performed on the Hand During Labor on Endorphin Levels and Labor Pain Perception: A Randomised Controlled Trial

This study was performed to determine the impact of different acupressure procedures, performed on women's hands during labor, on endorphin levels and labor pain perception.

The sample consisted of 140 pregnant women. The study was conducted with three experimental groups and one control group, each including 35 pregnant women. Conventional acupressure and warm and cold acupressure procedures were performed on the Large Intestinal 4 energy meridian zone acupressure point of the experimental group. No procedures were performed on the women in the control group. Data were collected using a "Personal Information Form", "Labor Intervention Follow-up Form", "Visual Analog Scale" and "Verbal Category Scale".

The comparison between the experimental and control groups indicated that the conventional acupressure procedure was effective in reducing labor pain and that the warm acupressure procedure increased endorphin levels.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Being a primipara
• Having intact membranes
• No skin diseases (such as urticaria...),
• No use of narcotic drugs
• Having a term pregnancy
• Having a single fetus at vertex position
• Planning to have vaginal delivery
• Having contractions and ongoing regular augmentation
• Having recent augmentation starting periods
• Being in the latent phase (0-3 cm dilatation)
• Having no history of high-risk pregnancy
• Not using analgesic drugs to reduce pain during delivery
• Having no systemic and neurologic diseases
• Having no contraction anomaly (hypotonic or hypertonic contractions)

Exclusion Criteria:

Having any of the above criteria.

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