ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Effects of Yoga and Meditation on the Birth
Process
Tugba Yilmaz Esencan, PhD, MW; Gulay Rathfisch, PhD
ABSTRACT
Context • During labor, conscious maternal expulsive
efforts are crucial, especially in the second stage.
Contemporarily, medical professional’s bedside
observations indicate an inadequacy in the maternal
contribution to the process of delivery that has led to
increased rates of caesarean sections and interventional
deliveries. For that reason, the importance of yoga,
meditation, and breath-awareness practices increases
during pregnancy and birth.
Objective • The study intended to examine the impact on
the delivery process of the practice of yoga and meditation
during pregnancy and labor.
Design • The research team designed a randomized
controlled trial.
Setting • The research was conducted between October
2016 and May 2018 at an educational and research
hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, on the Anatolian side of the
Istanbul province.
Participants • Participants were 90 primiparous pregnant
women who applied to the pregnancy school at the hospital
and who met the criteria for acceptance into the study.
Intervention • The participants was randomly divided
into two groups, 30 in an intervention group and 60 in a
Tugba Yilmaz Esencan, PhD, MW, Assistant Professor,
Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Health Sciences,
Uskudar University, Istanbul, Turkey. Gulay Rathfisch, PhD,
Professor, Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Health
Sciences, Biruni University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Corresponding author: Tugba Yilmaz Esencan, PhD, MW
E-mail: tugba.yilmazesencan@uskudar.edu.tr
INTRODUCTION
During labor, conscious maternal expulsive efforts are
crucial, especially in the second stage. Contemporarily,
medical professional’s bedside observations indicate an
inadequacy in the maternal contribution to the process of
6 ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES, JAN/FEB 2023 VOL. 29 NO. 1
control group. The intervention group performed yoga
and meditation for 60 minutes two times a week for 10
weeks. Yoga and meditation practices also occurred during
the course of labor for the intervention group. Routine
midwifery care was given to both groups during labor.
Outcome Measures • The data were collected using:
(1) the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), (2) the
Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire A,
(3) the Childbirth Self-Efficacy Scale (CBSEI) Short Form,
(4) the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience
Questionnaire Version B, and (5) a visual analogue scale
(VAS) for pain.
Results • When the labor data were evaluated, the
intervention group had statistically higher vaginal delivery
rates, lower labor intervention rates and episiotomy opening
frequencies, lower pain measurement scores and WIJMA B
scores, and higher CBSEI scores than the control group.
However, the intervention group’s STAI scores had increased
significantly after the practice post intervention.
Conclusions • Yoga and meditation are effective methods
for reducing pain and fear perception and increasing self-
efficacy and vaginal delivery rates during the labor process.
(Altern Ther Health Med. 2023;29(1):6-14).
delivery. Women today seem to have lost interest in their
potential birth power, forgotten the power of their own
bodies during the birth process, and completely handed over
control at birth to medical staff, causing an increase in
cesarean and interventional birth rates.
Anxiety about pregnancy can increase prenatal fear.
Erkaya et al found that a relationship existed between anxiety
and prenatal fear and that scores on the WIJMA-A scale,
which measures women’s childbirth fear during pregnancy,
showed increased fear as the averages for the anxiety score
increased on the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI).1
Stoll et al found that women had a fear of childbirth
because of the pain they can experience and that this
increased the number of planned cesareans.2 Karakus and
Sahin also found that a significant relationship existed
Yilmaz Esencan—Effects of Yoga and Meditation on the Birth Process