A Study to evaluate the Effectiveness of Lower Back Massage on Labour Pain among Parturient Women in the First Stage of Labour admitted to the Government Hospital, Mannargudi at Thiruvarur District

“Mothers – at those breast nations are fed, in whose lap civilization are cradled” (shrivastav, 1986).Mothering is the greatest gift & life is mother’s gift to every one & during this process of giving birth she has to undergone labour pain”. In order to find solution to the problem a study to evaluate the effectiveness of lower back massage on labour pain among parturient women in the first stage of labour admitted to Government Hospital, Mannargudi at Thiruvarur district had undertaken. Studies have shown that massage prompts the processing of painful stimuli because pressure fibers act longer and more quickly than pain fibers. OBJECTIVES: 1. To assess the degree of labour pain experienced by parturient women in the first stage of labour among control group who did not receive lower back massage 2. To assess the degree of labour pain experienced by parturient women in the first stage of labour among experimental group who receive lower back massage 3. To compare the degree of labour pain experienced by parturient women in first stage of labour among experimental and control group in order to find out the effectiveness of lower back massage. 4. To find out the association between labour pain experienced by parturient women with their selected demographic variables of experimental and control group. METHODOLOGY : The research design adopted for this study was quasi experimental under that pre–experimental (post test only control group) design and research approach adopted for this study was quantitative approach. 40 parturient women were selected in Government Hospital, Mannargudi at Thiruvarur district and assigned 20 women to experimental and 20 women to control group. Data is collected by using visual analogue scale this consists of two sections. Section I: Demographic variables, Section II: Visual analogue scale. MAJOR FINDINGS: • Phase wise mean percentage scores of the degree of pain experienced by women in the first stage of labour during contractions among experimental group is lower (0%, 25%, 60%, 65%, 85% respectively) than those of control group (31.5%, 60%, 85%, 100%, 100%). • Phase wise mean percentage scores of the degree of labour pain experienced by women in the first stage of labour in-between contractions among experimental group is lower (0%, 0%, 0%, 0%, 7.5% respectively) than those of control group (0%, 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%). • The findings of the study indicated that there was a significant difference between the degree of labour pain experienced by the women in experimental and control group in the first stage of labour during contractions (‘t’(39)=28.62 ,p<0.05) and in-between contractions (‘t’(39)=30.8, p