The Effectiveness of Pelvic Rocking and Birthing Ball Exercise on Labor Pain during First Stage of Active Phase

Labor pain is a challenging issue for nurses designing intervention protocols for women who intend to have normal childbirth. Pelvic rocking ball or birthing ball exercise is believed can help ease the childbirth process. We combined those instruments as a non-pharmacological approach and pain management before childbirth. This study examined the effectiveness of pelvic rocking and birthing ball exercises to reduce labor pain during the first stage of active phase. A quasi-experimental approach was conducted and a purposive sampling technique was used to recruit 30 women who expected to have normal childbirth. They were randomly assigned to either receive the pelvic rocking ball (group A), birthing ball (group B), or both (group C). The numeric Rating Scale (NRT) was used to assign the pain intensity pre and post-intervention. This study showed that the labor pain decrease in women who had the combination of pelvic rocking and birthing ball (p-value 0.000), birthing ball (p-value 0.0001), and pelvic rocking ball exercise (0.05). The combination of pelvic rocking and birthing ball exercise is the most influential strategy as a non-pharmacology nursing intervention due to labor pain management.