Abstract:

Labor pain is a distressing experience that parturients inevitably face during childbirth, exerting multiple adverse effects on their physiological and psychological well-being. Although epidural labor analgesia has become a mainstream clinical analgesic method, it is associated with limitations such as significant individual variability in analgesic efficacy, potential impacts on labor progression, and drug-related adverse effects, which impose certain restrictions on its clinical application. Press needle, as a characteristic therapy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, offers advantages including simple operation, safety, and absence of adverse reactions. It has been widely applied in the treatment of various pain conditions with confirmed efficacy. A systematic review of studies on press needle combined with epidural labor analgesia reveals that this combined regimen provides significantly superior analgesic effects for parturients undergoing natural childbirth compared to single analgesic modalities. It can effectively improve the maternal childbirth experience, optimize maternal and neonatal outcomes, and demonstrates high clinical value for broader application. However, current research on press needle combined with epidural analgesia still faces several issues, such as small clinical sample sizes, a scarcity of multicenter studies, insufficient fundamental research on molecular mechanisms, and a lack of unified clinical application standards. Future efforts should focus on addressing these aforementioned problems to provide a more scientific basis for the application of press needle in labor analgesia, enhance its clinical efficacy, and strengthen its utilization in the field of obstetrics.

Key words: Natural childbirth, Pain, Press needle, Analgesia, epidural, Acupuncture moxibustion therapy