Background: Episiotomy is the most common procedure among obstetrical surgical procedures and there is a considerable pain during perineal repair.
Objective: Since pain reduction is an important concern in child birth, this study was designed to evaluate the effects of nitrous oxide in comparison to lidocaine on pain intensity, during episiotomy repair in nulliparous women.
Methods: A prospective randomized controlled trial method was used in this study and 120 term pregnant women were recruited. The intervention group received nitrous oxide two minutes before starting episiotomy repair, until the end of the procedure. The control groupreceived 5 ml of Lidocaine (2%) before starting the episiotomy. The results of the two groups were compared in regard to pain intensity using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Mann-Whitney, student’s t-test and Chi square test were used to analyze the data.
Results: 60 subjects in each group were analyzed. In the nitrous oxide group 9 participants (15%) had any type of moderate, sever or extremely sever pain intensity and 23 subjects (38.4%) in lidocain group (P value= 0.005). Satisfaction level had no significant difference in the two groups (P value =0.713).
Conclusion: The results of this study showed that pain intensity in the nitrous oxide group was significantly lesser than the lidocain infiltration group. Application of nitrous oxide at least 2 minutes before repair may be a useful method for pain management in episiotomy repair.
Keywords: Nitrous oxide, Episiotomy, Lidocaine