Acupressure and Comfort at Childbirth

The Impact of Applying Various Forms of Acupressure on Women's Hand During Labor on Their Childbirth Comfort: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Aims: Non-pharmacological methods employed for management labor pain also help pregnant women to cope with labor pain and increase their childbirth comfort. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of cold and hot acupressure applications, applied to the acupressure point LI4 of primiparous women during labor, on their childbirth comfort.

Methods: This study was designed a randomized controlled experimental study. The sample consisted of 129 healthy pregnant women including 44 pregnant women in the hot acupressure group, 44 pregnant women in the cold acupressure group, and 41 pregnant women in the control group. The "Personal Information Form", the "Labor Monitoring Form", the "Visual Analog Scale", and the "Childbirth Comfort Questionnaire" were all used to gather the data.

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