Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of aromatherapy for the relief of labor pain and anxiety, from April 1 to April 30, 2003. The subjects were primiparae admitted in a general delivery hospital in Seoul. The number of subjects were 22 in the experimental group and 21 in the control group. For our experiment, we prepared a recipe with bergamot, lavender, lemon, and clary sage and treated the experimental group for an hour at the latent phase using indirect inhalation. For the labor pain, verbal response was recorded when cervix was measured between 2∼3 cm at the latent phase, 4∼7 cm at the active phase, and 8∼10 cm at the transition phase. In the experimental group, the mean score of labor pain and the sub-score at the active and the transition phases were lower than those of the control group. This results suggest that aromatherapy had a practical effect on reducing labor pain. (Korean J Str Res 2005;13:295∼300)

• Keywords: Aromatherapy, Labor pain, Anxiety