Strategies for coping with labour pain

• Authors: Kulesza-Brończyk, B , Dobrzycka, B , Glinska, K , Terlikowski, SJ

Abstracts

EN

Introduction: Labour pain, though physiological, is an impulse producing stress reactions and adverse physical, mental and emotional sequelae in the body. Knowing the factors influencing the intensity of pain feeling, activities aimed at easing the pain can be applied. There is a great variety of strategies for coping with pain during labour. Parents can choose between pharmacological and natural methods, which are presently growing in popularity. Parents can ease the pain by means of different strategies of pain coping. Purpose: To analyse different strategies for pain coping used in labour. Materials and methods: The study was carried out in the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the J. Sniadecki District Hospital in Bialystok with a group of 164 patients during labour, using the questionnaire of pain coping strategies-CSQ, and visual analogue scale-VAS, which evaluates the intensity of pain. Results: In the group of patients examined, the most frequently used strategies of pain coping were declaration of coping and prayer/hope. These methods caused statistically significant influence on the decrease of the intensity of pain felt during labour stages I and II. The efficiency of the level of pain control and the possibilities for its reduction in labour were reported as average. Conclusions: Our results give grounds to assume that psychological treatment can be helpful during labour. The conscious application of pain coping strategies can significantly improve patients’ states of mind during labour, change patients’ attitudes towards labour and induce co-responsibility for labour progression.

Keywords

EN

Pain control; pain coping strategies; labour pain

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Medyczny w Białymstoku
• Journal: Progress in Health Sciences
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 82-87

Contributors

author

Kulesza-Brończyk, B

author

Dobrzycka, B

author

Glinska, K

author

Terlikowski, SJ