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Water injection showing promise as pain relief treatment in labour

New research proves that water injections are a simple, effective and safe way to manage back pain during labour.

A new trial has found promising results when it comes to a completely natural way of controlling pain relief for women with persistent lower back pain during labour, and it’s one that comes with no risk of adverse side effects.

The ICARIS trial, published in The Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine, was a collaboration between Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Oxford and the University of Queensland, Australia.

During 2012 and 2017, more than 1,000 women at Oxford’s St John Radcliffe Hospital and 15 other maternity units in Australia took part in the study.  These women, who were reported to be experiencing severe back pain, were randomly provided either subcutaneous water injections or a placebo of saline solution.

Prof. Sally Collins OUH Consultant Obstetrician and Associate Professor in the Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, who led the UK part of the study, explained that whilst many other countries had already been using water injections as a simple pain-relieving technique, the scientific and study-based evidence to prove that it worked was lacking.

In fact, due to the lack of official testing on this practice, many healthcare professionals had already dismissed it as nonsense, with the NICE guidelines goings as far as to say that the treatment should not be used at all.

Now, the team behind the research are hoping the results of their study will begin to shift the negatives views on this treatment.

Researchers have released findings which show that during their study, twice as many women who received the water injections (compared to those who received the placebo) reported that their pain was reduced by at least half and the effect lasted for 90 minutes and longer.

The lead researcher on the study, Dr Nigel Lee of the University of Queensland (UQ) School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work explains that most drugs currently provided for labour pain are not effective in treating the type of constant back pain women experience during labour, and this means that some women feel pushed into having an epidural in order to cope.  He says:

“The implications of the results of our trial are huge; unlike normal labour pain, back labour pain is unpredictable and often continues between contractions with no break. Most drugs provided for labour pain are ineffective for this constant back pain, which may lead some women to having an epidural when they would have preferred not to have one”

Due to the definitive results showing the effectiveness of the water injections, the research team say that their research now clearly proves that water injections are a simple, effective and safe way to manage women’s back pain during labour, and, when compared to existing pain treatments on offer, is safer, easier and has no effect on birth outcomes.

Prof Collins, senior author of the previous Cochrane review of the technique, says:

“This robust trial provides much needed evidence that it works using the strongest possible research method, a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The fact that it is cheap, simple and needs minimal training should mean it will be able to provide pain-relief for women in developing countries where access to other pain-relief may be limited.

In addition to OUH, the University of Oxford and UQ, the collaboration included Australia’s Charles Darwin University and the University of Skövde, in Sweden.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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