The Effect of Early Oral Feeding on Post-caesarean Pain: A randomized Clinical Trial

Caesarean section is one of the most common gynecological surgeries of women. In the traditional method, the patients are prohibited by the surgeon from eating and drinking until the presence of bowel sounds or the passage of flatus after caesarean section surgery. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of early oral feeding on post-caesarean pain in patients undergoing caesarean section.

This clinical trial was conducted on126 women with repeat caesarean deliveries referring to hospital in Divandareh in the northwest of Iran from 2016 to 2017. The samples were randomly divided in to groups of intervention (early feeding) and control (routine feeding). The severity of pain was recorded before and 6, 12, 18, and 24 hours after the intervention. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics and analytical statistics, including t test, paired t-test and repeated measures ANOVA were used. The P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The mean pain severity in the intervention group was significantly lower compared to the control group at 6, 12, 18, and 24 hours after the intervention (P < 0.001).

Early feeding turned out to reduce the severity of post-caesarean pain.