revistas-articulo-ingles

Authors

1Irene Campos Abad, 1Ingrid Cintas Albiol, 1Mª del Pilar Rico González, 2Mª José Alemany Anchel

Position

¹Alumnas de la promoción de matronas de la unidad de matronas de Valencia.²Profesora de maternal de la EUE “La Fe”, Valencia.

Contact email: alemany_marjos@gva.es

Abstract

Objectives: to evaluate whether intrapartum perineal massage is an effective technique to minimise perineal trauma after delivery, whether it decreases the number of instrumented deliveries and whether it decreases the duration of the expulsive stage.
Design: cross-sectional experimental study with systematic randomised sampling..
Material and method: 189 women who gave birth at the Hospital de Sagunto and at Hospital General de Castellón between June 2006 and March 2007 were studied. The total number of women were divided into two groups: an experimental group who received perineal massaging applying humid heat and almond oil with the aim of dilating perineal tissues and a second non-experimental group which was given the standard care. The study included women that came to give birth to both hospitals once their labour had started. Women who delivered by C-section and those who had a multiple pregnancy had a high risk or very high-risk pregnancy attended by a gynaecologist, had a premature delivery or those who had a systematic episiotomy were excluded from the study. After delivery, each woman was evaluated to ascertain whether the perineum was intact or whether it had sustained some sort of damage. The duration of the whole labour process and the duration of the expulsive stage were also monitored.
Results, conclusion and discussion: there were no differences in terms of labour duration. A longer expulsive stage was observed in those women who received massaging. Regarding the condition of the perineum, no differences were observed regarding tearing but differences were found regarding episiotomy and intact perineum in women in the experimental group, although these differences were not statistically significant.
The preventive effect of intrapartum perineal massaging is not clearly demonstrated and therefore we recommend its application during pregnancy.