Research in Australian has re-enforced evidence that hypnotherapy and acupuncture can reduce labour pains during birth.

The study was carried out at the University of Adelaide with a review of non-drug pain relief therapies and showed that hypnosis reduced the need for drug pain relief in labour, lessened the need for medications that augmented labour and also increased the number of spontaneous vaginal births.

Women  treated with acupuncture  also reported more satisfaction with their labour pain management than those mothers who did not receive that treatment.

In addition to hypnosis and acupuncture, the Australian study looked at the effects of massage, relaxation, aromatherapy, acupressure and white noise on pain relief. However the review did not produce sufficient evidence to determine if any of the other therapies offered significant comfort for women in labour.

The findings appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organisation that evaluates research in all aspects of health care.

The report's lead author, Dr Caroline Smith, said there was still too little research to assess the effectiveness of many complementary therapies in labour pain management but “the results concerning acupuncture and hypnosis are encouraging.” 

A visiting Research Fellow at Adelaide University Dr Smith explained: “More robust research and more research trials have been undertaken for these two therapies (hypnosis and acupuncture) versus the other treatments.”

However she believed better designed trials were still needed before the findings could be confidently put into practice.

The meta-analysis compiled data from 14 studies which included the pregnancies of more than 1,400 women. Five studies examined hypnosis, and three studies gauged acupuncture’s effect on pain relief.

The inclusion criteria included published and unpublished randomised controlled trials comparing complementary and alternative therapies with placebo, no treatment or pharmacological forms of pain management in labour. All women whether primiparous or multiparous, and in spontaneous or induced labour, in the first and second stage of labour were included.

Seven trials involving 366 women and using different modalities of pain management were included in this review. The trials included one involving acupuncture (n = 100), one involving audio-analgesia (n = 25), one involving aromatherapy (n = 22), three trials of hypnosis (n = 189) and one trial of music (n = 30).

The trial of acupuncture decreased the need for pain relief (relative risk (RR) 0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.39 to 0.81).

Women receiving hypnosis were more satisfied with their pain management in labour compared with controls (RR 2.33, 95% CI 1.55 to 4.71).

No differences were seen for women receiving aromatherapy, music or audio analgesia.

Other promising benefits from hypnosis appear to be increased vaginal delivery, and reduced use of oxytocin. One trial reported an increased duration of labour among women receiving hypnosis. There was no evidence of any adverse effects on the neonate.

Other gauges of the effectiveness of the labour pain-relief therapies included clinical outcomes like the length of labour, the need to use instruments to assist labour and trauma to the perineum.