Effectiveness of Relaxation Therapy among Antenatal Mothers

During pregnancy, women undergo specific physiological changes in their bodies which may lead to stress and a rise in blood pressure which may be due to different etiological contributions.One way of reducing their blood pressure as well as stress is by encouraging those women to perform diaphragmatic deep breathing exercises.The current study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of relaxation therapy among antenatal mothers.True experimental pretest-posttest control group research design was conducted in the antenatal clinic of the host institution.The 60 antenatal mothers were recruited as study participants using a non-probability purposive sampling technique.All 60 antenatal mothers were randomly assigned to either the intervention group (Relaxation therapy) or the placebo group by using the lottery method,30 in the interventional group and 30 in the placebo group.For the interventional group, On Day 1, demographic and clinical data were collected from the study participants, followed by a Diaphragmatic deep breathing exercise initiated for 20 minutes daily in the morning for about 28 days.For the placebo group, demographic and clinical data were collected from the study participants, followed by routine hospital care initiated for about 28 days.On Day 29, the study participants were re-assessed for the level of stress, blood pressure and proteinuria in both interventional and placebo groups.The study results concluded that diaphragmatic deep breathing exercise reduced the levels of stress (mean difference score on the level of stress was 37.10 and the calculated paired 't' test value of t = 10.460 was statistically significant at p<0.001 level), blood pressure (statistically significant difference at p<0.001 level between the post-test level of systolic BP between the two groups, there was a statistically significant difference at p<0.01 level between the posttest level of diastolic BP between the two groups), proteinuria (there was a statistically significant difference in the post-test level of proteinuria between the groups), there was no statistically significant difference at p<0.05 level between the post-test level of BMI between the two groups.Performing diaphragmatic deep breathing exercises enhanced, the reduction in the level of blood pressure, stress, BMI and proteinuria among our study participants.