Antenatal Education for Labour and Postpartum Pain: A Scoping Review of Content, Approaches, and Gaps
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Pain management during labour and the postpartum period is a critical aspect of maternal care, yet many individuals face challenges in obtaining and implementing effective strategies. Antenatal education programmes play a key role in preparing expectant parents for childbirth and beyond, but their impact on women’s pain management remains unclear. Therefore, this review aims to explore and map the contents and characteristics of existing antenatal education programmes that address labour and postpartum pain, which could inform future efforts to develop and optimise these programmes. Methods This review followed the PRISMA-ScR and Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines. The protocol was registered with the Open Science Framework (6597j). 11 electronic databases were systematically searched in November 2024. Eligible studies were screened independently by two reviewers using Rayyan software. Inclusion criteria focussed on quantitative trials of antenatal education programmes addressing labour and postpartum pain outcomes. Data were extracted and a narrative synthesis was completed to map intervention characteristics and outcomes. Results A total of 5,876 records were identified from the search strategy. A total of 12 articles met the eligibility and inclusion criteria, including seven randomised controlled trials and five quasi-experimental studies. The content and structure of antenatal education interventions between studies was heterogenous. Common themes included the distinction between “true and false labour pain” and breathing exercises. Face-to-face delivery of antenatal education was the preferred delivery method. Conclusion Antenatal education programmes contain limited information on labour and postpartum pain management, with little consistency across interventions. Non-pharmacological pain management strategies have the potential to address biopsychosocial factors of pain and support coping in labour. We recommend the development of interventions based on pain science education principles to support pain-management during labour and in the postpartum.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.031 | 0.096 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.029 | 0.025 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".