Labour pain

In the survey of chartered physiotherapists discussed in Chapter 1, 85.5% of respondents ranked TENS first against six other electrotherapeutic modalities for obstetric pain. The intensity of labour pain has been ranked higher than several clinical pain syndromes including arthritis, postherpetic neuralgia and phantom limb pain (Melzack et al 1981). The primary factor to be considered with selection of any type of analgesia during labour is the potential side-effects of the intervention on both the foetus and the mother. Entonox (50:50 mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen), intramuscular or intravenous narcotics and epidural blocks are examples of standard methods of obstetric analgesia. TENS has several advantages over other types of obstetric analgesia in that it is non-invasive, it gives the mother a level of control and she remains fully alert during the birth. Furthermore, the safety of TENS has also been investigated and no adverse effects observed in either mother or foetus in several studies。