Effect of acupressure on labor pain relief: a systematic review of clinical trials

Relief of labor pain is one of midwifery the new cares. Nowadays، non-pharmacological pain relief methods such as acupressure are considered due to their low side effects. This study was performed with the aim to review the studies which evaluated the effect of acupressure on labor pain relief. All of the published articles up to 2013 in SID، Iranmedex، Irandoc، Magiran، Googlescholar، Pubmed، Medline، Embase، CINHAL، Cochran and IRCT which were performed on pregnant women with age 18-35 years، 37-41 gestational week، single-pregnancy، cephalic، and onset of active phase were assessed by Jadad scale. The articles with score ≥3 were selected. Finally، the results were reported as qualitative and quantitative. 18 clinical trials were assessed that 12 articles obtained score≥ 3 based on Jadad scale. Acupressure points used were SP6 in 7 articles، L14 in 2 articles، GB21 and SP6 in 1 article، L14 and BL67 in 1 article and L14 and SP6 in 1 article. Most of the studies showed the positive effect of acupressure on labor pain relief، but the side effects were not reported. Since many articles have been performed with high validity about the effect of acupressure، thus it can be suggested for labor pain relief. Since in the most of the high quality studies، SP6 and L14 were more used for labor pain relief compared to other points (GB21، L32، L67) thus this point can be suggested with more coefficient for labor pain relief.