Hot and cold therapy

Research on heat and cold in childbirth spans two settings: comfort during labor and care of the perineum after birth. In labor, trials have looked at warm and cold applications to acupressure points, ice massage at a specific point, and warm compresses. A review of massage, reflexology and other manual methods and a network meta-analysis of non-pharmacological pain relief place these approaches in a larger group of comfort measures.

After birth, much of the published work centers on cold. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses look at cryotherapy for perineal pain, cold application for episiotomy pain, and local cooling for pain from perineal trauma, and a randomized trial compared a cold compress with a room temperature compress on a repaired perineum. Another trial examined massage and warm compresses in relation to perineal trauma, bleeding and pain. A review of treatments for breast engorgement during lactation also appears among the tracked papers.

Parents often ask what a heat pack or ice pack is meant to do, when it is used and how comfortable it is. Researchers continue to study these questions, and outcomes and methods differ between studies.

An educator may want slides to separate labor comfort from postpartum recovery, since the research does. The papers below are the ones the Hub tracks on this topic.