Evaluation the cooling gelpad and ice pack on wound healing and intensity perineal pain after episiotomy in primparous women

Background: Episiotomy occuring during delivery can be a source of serious short and long term
morbidity. So a delay in healing can also increase the duration of perineal pain. Nowadays
attention has recently focused on maternal morbidity and improving diagnosis and treatment of
perineal injury following childbirth. So, this study was done to evaluate the effectiveness of cold
therapy in two patient groups (gel pad and ice pack) and compare them with control group in term
of wound healing and intensity perineal pain after episiotomy in primparous women who gave
birth at Hazrat Ommolbanin University Maternity Hospital in Mashhad-Iran from October 2005 to
February 2006.
Methods and material: In this randomized controlled trial, 121 healthy primparous women with
include and exclude criteria which underwent normal delivery with episiotomy were chosen in the
two cold therapy groups(gel pad and ice pack) and one control group. Evaluation of wound healing
with REEDA scale and evaluation of intensity pain with numeric scale (NRS) (0-10) during the first
4 hours and on 1st,2nd,5th,10th days after episiotomy and evaluation of satisfaction of women from
analgesia at 10th day were conducted.
Data were analysed by statistic methods with chi-square, kruskal Wallis. Mann-withney u,
jonckheere trepstra, analysis variance and exact tests with software spss.
Results: The results showed a statistically significant difference in the wound healing in 2nd day
(P<0.001), 5th day (P<0.001) and 10th day (P<0.001) and intensity perineal pain in 3 the groups at
first 4 hours (P=0.003) and 10th day (P=0.044) after episiotomy. Also satisfactory was in favor of
the maternity gel pad group.
Conclusion: Using to maternity gelpad is effective in reducing perineal morbidity. So it suggested
as a complementary treatment in clinical services and is a comfirmation to the correct and invasive
treatment and can be an acheivement in promoting health level and also, women’s satisfaction.