Abstract
The present study was aimed to assess the relationship between pain expectation before labour, labour pain and pain perception after the labour. Pregnant women were asked to rate their pain level on a standard continuous visual analogue scale at various time points. Pain expectancy (PE), labour pain (LP) and postpartum pain perception (PPP) scores were calculated. The final study group was composed of 230 pregnant women after exclusions. Mean age of pregnant women was 26.2 ± 5.79. The mean PE, LP, and PPP scores were 70.11 ± 18.82, 75.72 ± 19.2 and 65.84 ± 19.56, respectively. The difference among pain scores was statistically significant (p < 0.001). There was a positive correlation between PE and LP or PE and PPP scores (p = 0.27 and p = 0.21). The correlations were statistically significant (p = 0.01 or p = 0.01). In addition, there was a positive correlation between LP and PPP scores (p = 0.87) and the correlation was statistically significant (p = 0.01). This study showed that, if pregnant women had lower expectations of pain before the labour, they indeed experienced lower amount of pain during the labour.
Highlights
Childbirth, a milestone in a woman’s life, is one of the most painful events that likely to experience
We aimed to evaluate the relationship between pain expectation (PE) and experience of labour pain (LP) or postpartum pain perception (PPP) after the labour
There was a positive correlation between Pain expectancy (PE) and LP or PPP scores (0.27 or 0.21) and the correlations were statistically significant (p = 0.01)
Summary
Childbirth, a milestone in a woman’s life, is one of the most painful events that likely to experience. It was claimed that both the subjective experience of pain and pain-related brain activation diminish through the expectations of decreased pain profoundly (Porro et al 1998) These declines are common and comprise a functionally diverse set of brain regions, including the thalamus, somatosensory cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, and cerebellum. Their diversity, all these brain regions are known to exhibit activation that is significantly related to the subjective experience of pain (Koyama et al 2005). In a systematic review (McCrea and Wright 1999) it was shown that women’s factual experiences do
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