Obstetric Labor, Pregnancy
Conditions
Keywords
labor, vaginal examination, transperineal ultrasound, pain, anxiety
Brief summary
Digital vaginal examination is the most common method for assessing progress of labor and delivery. Considering it is the most common intervention women receive during course of labor, evidence for psychological effects of digital vaginal examination on women is surprisingly sparse. Reducing the number of vaginal examination during labor has been proposed by many authors as benefit of more vaginal examination is unclear. However this is unlikely to happen until more research on the topic demonstrates clear detrimental effects of vaginal examination. Our study is aimed at investigating association of vaginal examination with psychological distress of women during labor. Anxiety during labor is associated with longer labor duration, increased perception of pain, problems with newborn attachment, and increased rates of postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In this study, women were assigned to either digital vaginal examination or transperineal ultrasound assessment groups were compared to each other in a randomised controlled setting.
Interventions
OTHERDigital vaginal examination
Patients will be subject to digital vaginal examinations every four hours during latent phase of first stage, hourly during active phase of first stage and as needed during second stage.
DEVICETransperineal ultrasound examination
Patients will be subject to transperineal ultrasound examinations every four hours during latent phase of first stage, hourly during active phase of first stage and as needed during second stage.
Sponsors
Ankara University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
FEMALE
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Multiparous women * Spontaneous active labor * Cephalic presentation
Exclusion criteria
* Women with known psychiatric disorders * Labor induction * Advanced labor during admission (Dilatation greater than 7cm) * Presence of a prenatally diagnosed anomaly in fetus * Admission to neonatal intensive care unit after delivery * Delayed hospital discharge due to excessive weight loss of neonate
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Anxiety levels | Between 12 to 48 hours | Anxiety levels of the patients will be assessed with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaire during admission, at the beginning of active phase of stage one and four hours after delivery. |
| Labor pain | Between 12 to 48 hours | Perceived pain level of the patients will be assessed with Visual Analog Scale (VAS) questionnaire during admission, at the beginning of active phase of stage one and four hours after delivery. |
Countries
Turkey (Türkiye)
Contacts
Primary ContactErkan Kalafat, MD
Outcome results
None listed