Clinical Research Directory

Determining the Effect of the ThetaHealing Meditation Method Given During the Antenatal Period on Labor Pain and Fear in Primiparous Women

Purpose: This randomized controlled study was designed to determine the effect of the ThetaHealing meditation method given to primiparous pregnant women during the antenatal period on labor pain and fear. Objectives: 1. To increase childbirth satisfaction by enabling pregnant women to use the ThetaHealing meditation method during labor. 2. To ensure the use of the ThetaHealing meditation method during labor in order to reduce labor pain and/or facilitate adaptation to pain. 3. To reduce childbirth fear and/or facilitate adaptation to childbirth fear during labor by using the ThetaHealing meditation method. 4. To improve childbirth comfort through the ThetaHealing meditation method and thereby encourage vaginal birth. 5. Labor pain and childbirth fear are important factors that affect pregnant women's birth preferences. Negative birth experiences heard from women's social environment create beliefs that their own births will also be difficult, bloody, and traumatic. 6. Teaching the ThetaHealing meditation method to pregnant women during the antenatal period and enabling them to use their minds positively during labor is thought to increase women's comfort at the time of birth. In addition, continuous midwifery care during labor is known to increase a woman's self-confidence. A woman's feeling well and safe will influence the mode of birth. There is no research in the literature specifically addressing brain waves and childbirth. However, based on information conveyed by healthcare professionals, it is thought that after the procedural processes that begin when a woman is admitted to the hospital for birth, pregnant women remain in the beta frequency together with stress and anxiety. This is because the beta frequency is a brain wave in which surrender cannot be achieved and the person experiences intense stress and anxiety. It is clear that a woman cannot reach a state of surrender while feeling anxiety and worry under bright hospital lights in a room filled with NST sounds. With the progression of labor, a calmer environment, dim lighting, and continuous midwifery support, it is thought that the pregnant woman can reach the alpha brain wave and become ready for surrender.It is even thought that if the progression of labor is left to the woman's control, she may reach the theta brain wave. A woman who can reach the alpha or theta brain wave is awake but in a continuous sleep-like state. She is now away from anxiety and stress, intuitive, instinctive, and attuned to the labor process. Since there is no scientific study on the effect of brain frequencies on the labor process, brain wave activity during labor has been inferred based on midwives' observations. By providing education on the ThetaHealing meditation method to pregnant women in the antenatal period, it is aimed to help women attune to the alpha and/or theta frequency, thereby reducing the increase in cesarean rates and facilitating adaptation to childbirth fear and pain. For these purposes, an EEG device is needed to determine in which frequency range the brain waves are during labor when the ThetaHealing meditation method is used. By investigating the effectiveness of the training using an EEG device, a contribution will be made to the literature.