Influence of Immersion in Water During Labor on the Request of Epidural Anesthesia by Pregnant Women

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne

Status: Completed

Conditions: Labor Pain; Delivery

Treatments: Other: General data; Other: Other data

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06036277

IRBN702023/CHUSTE

Details and patient eligibility

About

Women are showing a growing interest in less medicalized childbirth. According to the french 2021 perinatal survey, 52.2% of women want to limit medical procedures and 38.2% of women want childbirth without epidural anesthesia. Between 77 and 82% of deliveries nevertheless lead to an epidural anesthesia. The painful feeling seems to be the main motivation for using this mode of anesthesia.

Full description

In the scientific literature, few data from clinical studies focus on the effects of immersion in water during childbirth. The analgesic effects of immersion in water to lessen the painful experience are yet to be proven. The opening of a physiological delivery room with a bathtub at the Saint-Etienne University Hospital since October 2020 provides data that has not been exploited yet and could make possible to answer the question of the analgesic effects of immersion in water during labour. The difficulties of analysis and the subjectivity of the painful feeling led us to consider the request of epidural anesthesia as the main analysis criterion.

Enrollment: 249 patients

Sex: Female

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• All women who used the physiological delivery room of the Saint-Etienne University Hospital between October 2020 and December 2022.

Exclusion criteria

• Absence of physiological desire for childbirth.
• Medical indication for epidural anesthesia.

Trial design

249 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental group

Description:

Women who wish to give birth without epidural anesthesia and have benefited of water immersion during labor

Treatment:

Other: Other data

Other: General data

Control group

Description:

Women who wish to give birth without epidural anesthesia and have not benefited of water immersion during labor

Treatment:

Other: Other data

Other: General data