Trial reportBMC complementary and alternative medicine2014
Acupuncture with manual and electrical stimulation for labour pain: a longitudinal randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in BMC complementary and alternative medicine, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT01197950 (A Randomized Controlled Trial of Acupuncture to Reduce Labour Pain), which is not on this map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Randomized Controlled Trial of Acupuncture to Reduce Labour Pain
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acupuncture or acupressure for pain management during labour.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Labour Q1 pain - poorly analysed and reported: a systematic review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2018Pooled it
- Associations between maternal characteristics and women's responses to acupuncture during labour: a secondary analysis from a randomised controlled trial.Acupuncture in medicine : journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society · 2017Trial
- Acupuncture with manual and electrical stimulation for labour pain: a two month follow up of recollection of pain and birth experience.BMC complementary and alternative medicine · 2015Trial
- Intrapartum Acupuncture Provision in the UK: A Survey of Independent Acupuncture Practitioners.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Adenosine triphosphate mediates the pain tolerance effect of manual acupuncture at Zusanli (ST36) in mice.Journal of traditional Chinese medicine = Chung i tsa chih ying wen pan · 2024Article
- Acupuncture alleviates acute peritonitis: A case report.Heliyon · 2023Article
- Understandings of acupuncture application and mechanisms.American journal of translational research · 2022Review
- Article
- The Effectiveness of Prenatal Intervention on Pain and Anxiety during the Process of Childbirth-Northern Iran: Clinical Trial Study.Annals of medical and health sciences researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAcupuncture is commonly used to reduce pain during labour despite contradictory results. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture with manual stimulation and acupuncture with combined manual and electrical stimulation (electro-acupuncture) compared with standard care in reducing labour pain. Our hypothesis was that both acupuncture stimulation techniques were more effective than standard care, and that electro-acupuncture was most effective.
methodsA longitudinal randomised controlled trial. The recruitment of participants took place at the admission to the labour ward between November 2008 and October 2011 at two Swedish hospitals . 303 nulliparous women with normal pregnancies were randomised to: 40 minutes of manual acupuncture (MA), electro-acupuncture (EA), or standard care without acupuncture (SC). PRIMARY OUTCOME: labour pain, assessed by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). SECONDARY OUTCOMES: relaxation, use of obstetric pain relief during labour and post-partum assessments of labour pain. The sample size calculation was based on the primary outcome and a difference of 15 mm on VAS was regarded as clinically relevant, this gave 101 in each group, including a total of 303 women.
resultsMean estimated pain scores on VAS (SC: 69.0, MA: 66.4 and EA: 68.5), adjusted for: treatment, age, education, and time from baseline, with no interactions did not differ between the groups (SC vs MA: mean difference 2.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] -1.7-6.9 and SC vs EA: mean difference 0.6 [95% CI] -3.6-4.8). Fewer number of women in the EA group used epidural analgesia (46%) than women in the MA group (61%) and SC group (70%) (EA vs SC: odds ratio [OR] 0.35; [95% CI] 0.19-0.67).
conclusionsAcupuncture does not reduce women's experience of labour pain, neither with manual stimulation nor with combined manual and electrical stimulation. However, fewer women in the EA group used epidural analgesia thus indicating that the effect of acupuncture with electrical stimulation may be underestimated. These findings were obtained in a context with free access to other forms of pain relief.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01197950.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.