RESUMEN
Episiotomy occuring during delivery can be a source of serious short and long term morbidity. So a delay in healing can also increase the duration of perineal pain. Nowadays attention has recently focused on maternal morbidity and improving diagnosis and treatment of perineal injury following childbirth. So, this study was done to evaluate the effectiveness of cold therapy in two patient groups [gel pad and ice pack] and compare them with control group in term of wound healing and intensity perineal pain after episiotomy in primparous women who gave birth at Hazrat Ommolbanin University Maternity Hospital in Mashhad-Iran from October 2005 to February 2006. In this randomized controlled trial, 121 healthy primparous women with include and exclude criteria which underwent normal delivery with episiotomy were chosen in the two cold therapy groups [gel pad and ice pack] and one control group. Evaluation of wound healing with REEDA scale and evaluation of intensity pain with numeric scale [NRS] [0-10] during the first 4 hours and on 1[st], 2[nd], 5[th], 10[th] days after episiotomy and evaluation of satisfaction of women from analgesia at 10th day were conducted. Data were analysed by statistic methods with chi-square, Kruskal Wallis, Mann-Withney u, Jonckheere trepstra, analysis variance and exact tests with software spss. The results showed a statistically significant difference in the wound healing in 2[nd] day [P<0.001], 5[th] day [P<0.001] and 10th day [P<0.001] and intensity perineal pain in 3 the groups at first 4 hours [P=0.003] and 10[th] day [P=0.044] after episiotomy. Also satisfactory was in favor of the maternity gel pad group. Using to maternity gelpad is effective in reducing perineal morbidity. So it suggested as a complementary treatment in clinical services and is a comfirmation to the correct and invasive treatment and can be an acheivement in promoting health level and also, women's satisfaction