A study to assess the effectiveness of lukewarm water compression on nipple pain and breast engorgement among postnatal mothers at selected hospital, Namakkal

The common problems affecting breastfeeding is breast engorgement and nipple pain. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of lukewarm water compression on nipple pain and breast engorgement among postnatal mothers and to find out the association between the nipple pain and breast engorgement among postnatal mothers with their selected demographic variables.

Pre experimental-One group Pre-Test, Post-Test design was adopted for this study. The study was conducted at Maruthi Hospital, Namakkal. The sample size was 50 postnatal mothers; purposive sampling technique was used to select the samples. The nature of the study was briefed to participants and consent was obtained. Lukewarm water compression (two part of boiling water and one part cold water) was applied with a sponge cloth over the engorged breast and which was replaced every five minutes for a total duration of 20 minutes (10 minutes before and 10 minutes after breastfeeding) for two times on third, fourth and fifth postnatal day.

There was a significant difference between the post-test scores. The calculated paired't ’value 10.748 was significantly greater than the table value 1.96 at p<0.05 for nipple pain and the calculated paired't ’value 12.45 was significantly greater than the table value 1.96 at p<0.05 for breast engorgement. Conclusion: The study concluded that the application of lukewarm water compression is effective in reducing the nipple pain and breast engorgement among postnatal mothers.