The Effects of Breathing Techniques on the Length of Labor Active Phase and its Second Stage in Women's First Labor

Breathing techniques as Lamaze methods are utilized with the aim to control the labor pain. Breathing techniques help women to well adopt with labor pain. The studies reveal that adoption with labor pain can prevent the prolonged labors. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of breathing techniques on the length of labor active phase and its second stage. The present study is a double-blind clinical trial having been conducted in control group and breathing-techniques group، each including 60 subjects randomly selected. Having signed the written consent letter، the subjects were introduced into the study. The breathing techniques during the labor active phase for the intervention group was including deep breathing at the beginning of the labor contractions following with short and quick breathing with a rate of 1/5 times more than the normal breathing per minute. There was no intervention in control group. In order to evaluate the research results، T-tests and Χ2-tests have been utilized and the data have been analyzed by SPSS software. The findings of the study showed that the average age of the women in breathing-technique and control group was respectively 26±90/4 and 25/80±80/4، having no meaningful difference (p=0. 835). The length of the labor active phase in breathing-technique and control group was 8/26±012/3 and 88/9±64/6، with no meaningful difference (p=0. 106). While، the length of the labor second phase in intervention group was 55/16±70/5 and in control group was 85/23±90/18، which revealed a meaningful difference (p=0. 001). It seems that using breathing techniques is not effective in reducing the length of the labor active phase، but can be utilized to reduce the pain in the labor first phase.