Birthing ball technique and Sacral Massage on Maternal and fetal wellbeing: An Experimental-Pilot report

Introduction

The most ambitious dream of a woman in her life is giving birth. Child birth is a thrilling, exciting, revealing and life changing experience among women.A variety of factors affect the intensity and amount of pain experienced by women in labour. These include such as perception of pain, tolerance of pain, coping mechanisms, individual meaning of pain, expression of pain, communication of pain, cultural characteristics and environment of pain. The challenge of midwifery is to provide adequate and adapted care for each childbearing woman.

Objectives

To determine the effectiveness of birthing ball technique and sacral massage on pain perception, anxiety, cervical dilatation and uterine contraction between the control and experimental group of parturition mothers.

Materials and Methods

True experimental with Posttest only control group design is chosen for the study to assess the effectiveness of Birthing ball technique and Sacral Massage on maternal and fetal wellbeing among Parturient women in selected Maternity Health Centres, Bangalore. Probability (Simple random) sampling technique will be used to select the sample. Results: In regards to pain perception, pretest median value of pain perception in control and experimental group was not statistically significant (P=0.863), whereas in post test1 and post test 2 median value of pain perception in control and experimental group was statistically significant at p< 0.001.In regards to Anxiety, pretest median value of anxiety in control and experimental group was not statistically significant (P=0.435), whereas in post test1 and post test 2 median value of anxiety in control and experimental group was statistically significant at p< 0.001. In regards to cervical dilatation, pretest median value of cervical dilatation in control and experimental group was not statistically significant (P=1.000), whereas in post test1 and post test 2 median value of cervical dilatation in control and experimental group was statistically significant at p< 0.001. In regards to uterine contraction, pretest median value of uterine contraction in control and experimental group was not statistically significant (P=1.000), whereas in post test1 and post test 2 median value of uterine contraction in control and experimental group was statistically significant at p<0.001.

Conclusion

Birthing Ball technique and Sacral Massage is strongly recommended to be incorporated as an approach to labour management to improve the maternal and fetal wellbeing.

Imprint

M. Sundaram, G. Bhuvaneswari, Chandrika Anand. Birthing ball technique and Sacral Massage on Maternal and fetal wellbeing: An Experimental-Pilot report. Cardiometry; Issue 23; August 2022; p.173-178; DOI: 10.18137/cardiometry.2022.23.173178; Available from: https://www.cardiometry.net/issues/no23-august-2022/birthing-ball-technique