| Methods |
Parallel single‐blind, randomised controlled trial of acupuncture. The trial was stratified by parity. Women received acupuncture or no acupuncture. The randomisation sequence used shuffled cards and were concealed in sealed, opaque envelopes. The outcome assessor was not blind and it was unclear if the analyst was blind to treatment allocation. |
| Participants |
100 women were recruited from an antenatal clinic in Sweden. Randomisation took place in the delivery suite following admission. Inclusion criteria: 37+ weeks' gestation, spontaneous labour, cephalic presentation, cervical dilatation < 7 cm at admission. Exclusion criteria: diabetes, pre‐eclampsia, kidney disease, thrombocytopenia, psychological distress or anorexia, infectious blood disease, atopic eczema or psoriasis. |
| Interventions |
All women had access to conventional analgesia. Eleven midwives completed a four‐day course in acupuncture for labour pain. These midwives administered acupuncture to the treatment group. Acupuncture treatment was individualised with relaxing points combined with local and distal analgesic points. Needles were inserted at 45 or 90 degrees, stimulated manually until de qui (needling sensation) was obtained. Needles were left in situ and removed after 1‐3 hours. |
| Outcomes |
Pain intensity and degree of relaxation was assessed once every hour, prior to any analgesic and 15 minutes after. Other outcomes included; the use of analgesics, augmentation of labour with oxytocin, duration of labour, outcome of birth, antepartum haemorrhage, Apgar scores, and infant birthweight. |
| Notes |
Ten (10%) were excluded from the analysis after not meeting the inclusion criteria (breech presentation, not in active labour, not in spontaneous labour, missing pain and relaxation data). No sample‐size calculation was described. An intention‐to‐treat analysis was performed. |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Allocation concealment? |
Low risk |
A ‐ Adequate |
