International Journal of Advances in Nursing Management

Episiotomy is a common surgical procedure performed during second stage of labor. This is to widen the perineum and prevent severe perineal tears. Episiotomy was introduced as an obstetric procedure more than 200 years ago. However this procedure became a common practice only from the beginning of 20th century. It is now very important to improve new birthing technique that maintains the integrity of the perineum which does not involve surgical procedure. The present study is aimed to compare the effectiveness of infra red light therapy vs. sitz bath on episiotomy in terms of episiotomy wound healing among postnatal mothers. Formal permission was obtained from the Director Principal, Institutional review board, Dean-College of Nursing, Nursing Superintendent and HOD-OBG Department of the P.I.M.S Pondicherry. Consent was obtained from the participants. Reassurance and confidentiality were maintained. Post test only control group design was used. Convenience sampling method was adopted to select the sample based on the inclusion criteria. First thirty five postnatal mothers allocated to group I received sitz bath to the episiotomy for 15–20 minutes. Next 35 postnatal mothers allocated to group 2 received infra red light to the episiotomy for 15 minutes. Each therapy was provided twice daily for three consecutive days. Healing of wound was observed after giving the treatment using REEDA Scale and by using visual analog scale to assess intensity of episiotomy pain. The obtained data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings showed that sitz bath was effective in reducing the episiotomy pain perception (p=0.005) and episiotomy wound healing (p=0.02) compared to infrared light.