Effect of foot and hand massage in post-cesarean section pain control: a randomized control trial

Abstract

One of the problems for mothers in the post-cesarean section period is pain, which disturbs the early relationship between mothers and newborns; timely pain management prevents the side effects of pain, facilitates the recovery of patient, reduces the costs of treatment by minimizing or eliminating the mother's distress, and increases mother-infant interactions. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of hand and foot massage on post-cesarean section pain. This study is a randomized and controlled trial which was performed in Mustafa Khomeini Hospital, Elam, Iran, April 1 to July 30, 2011; it was carried out on 80 pregnant women who had an elective cesarean section and met inclusion criteria for study. The visual analog scale was used to determine the pain intensity before, immediately, and 90 minutes after conducting 5 minutes of foot and hand massage. Vital signs were measured and recorded. The pain intensity was found to be reduced after intervention compared with the intensity before the intervention (p < .001). Also, there was a significant difference between groups in terms of the pain intensity and requests for analgesic (p < .001). According to these findings, the foot and hand massage can be considered as a complementary method to reduce the pain of cesarean section effectively and to decrease the amount of medications and their side effects.