Virtual Reality Promising for Turning Down Labor Pains

Virtual reality was effective in reducing pain in laboring women, a researcher said here.

Women that wore a virtual reality (VR) headset during labor experienced a pain reduction of 0.52 compared with their pain pre-intervention, reported Melissa Wong, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The women that used VR while giving birth also experienced lower heart rates versus the control group, she said in a presentation at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine annual meeting.

"We have concluded that VR was effective in reducing pain in laboring women. In addition, our secondary finding of a reduction in heart rate is biologically consistent with a reduction in pain," Wong said.

VR has been tested in various clinical treatments, and previous research has demonstrated that VR may be effective in treating anxiety and mood disorders. Wong also noted that it has been used for rehabilitation after a stroke or traumatic brain injuries. In addition, studies have also shown that virtual reality may be effective in reducing acute and chronic pain.

Wong and colleagues conducted an unblinded, randomized clinical trial to assess whether VR was effective in reducing pain in laboring women. They recruited 40 women for the clinical trial from March 2018 through February 2019. Half of the women were randomized to the VR group, and the other half randomized to a control group, which received no intervention. Half of the women were induced, and all 40 participants recruited completed the trial.

In the trial, women in the VR group received the intervention for up to 30 minutes. Women wore a headset for a labor-specific VR session called "Labor Bliss," which allowed them to see and hear relaxing visuals and messages.

Women were included in the study if they experienced a pain score from four to seven, and had contractions every 5 minutes. Women that received any medications for pain relief, as well as an epidural, were excluded from the study. In addition, women who had any contraindications to VR such as epilepsy, seizures, or dizziness, were also excluded.

The primary outcome of the study was the difference in pain score from pre to post-intervention. Secondary outcomes included maternal and fetal vitals, obstetric outcomes, pain scores at 0, 2, and 4 hours post-intervention and epidurals received.

Demographic and clinical characteristics were similar between the control and VR groups. However, the VR group had more Latinx participants, and women in that group had a slightly higher BMI.

Of the 21 women that used VR during labor, the group experienced a reduction in pain by 0.52 from the start of labor. The control group, however, experienced an increase in pain by 0.58. Average post-intervention heart rate in the control group was 86.8 versus 76.3 in the VR group. For epidural outcomes, 89.7% of the women in the VR group underwent the procedure versus 85.7% in the control group.

Wong acknowledged that the study was limited by the short duration of the intervention. Also, by choosing no intervention as the control, the researchers could not be sure that it was the VR -- not just a distraction -- that reduced labor pains.