Women prefer longer labour to intense pain –Study If you were giving birth, what would be your choice: a longer labour with relatively less pain, or a shorter labour with terrible pain? That’s the question researchers posed to 40 pregnant women. Their preference- Less-intense pain at the cost of a longer labour. According to the lead author of the study Dr. Brendan Carvalho, from the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, “Interestingly, intensity is the driver”. Using an epidural “may prolong labour but reduces pain intensity, and it seems that would be preferable to most,” said Carvalho. For the study, Carvalho and his colleagues gave a seven-item questionnaire to expectant mothers who had arrived at the hospital to have labour induced but were not yet having painful contractions. The women took the survey a second time within 24 hours of giving birth. The questionnaire pitted hypothetical pain level, on a scale of zero to 10, against hours of labour. A sample question asked, “Would you rather have pain intensity at two out of 10 for nine hours or six out of 10 for three hours?” Both pre- and post-labour, women on average preferred less intense pain over a longer duration, according to results published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Granted, the 40 women in the study were all scheduled to have labour induced, so they may have been in for a longer labour anyway, Dr. Ruth Landau said. It might be interesting to see the results of this questionnaire given to women who are not induced, or who do not plan to have an epidural, she said. Landau, who was not part of the study, is the director of Obstetric Anaesthesiology and Clinical Genetics Research at the University of Washington Medical Centre in Seattle.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 23:11:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015