Continuous stitching method reduces pain for women with perineal damage after childbirth.(Brief Article)

2002 AUG 1 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Authors of a study in the June 29, 2002, issue of the Lancet suggest that a simple, continuous stitching technique to repair tears to the perineum after vaginal delivery can prevent one woman in six from having pain 10 days after childbirth. The study also highlights how the use of more rapidly absorbed suture material can avoid the need for the removal of stitches up to 3 months after delivery for 1 in 10 women.

Eighty-five percent of women who have a spontaneous vaginal birth will have some form of damage to the perineum, and up to 69% will need to have stitches. Annually, around 350,000 women in the U.K. - and millions of women worldwide - require sutures after vaginal delivery

Christine Kettle and colleagues from North Staffordshire Hospital (NHS Trust), Stoke on Trent, U.K., compared two different suturing techniques (continuous and interrupted), and two types of suture (the more rapidly absorbed polyglactin 910 suture material and the standard polyglactin 910 material). With continuous suturing, the perineal muscle and skin are reapproximated with a loose, continuous nonlocking technique; the skin sutures are placed loosely and fairly deep in the subcutaneous tissue and the repair is finished with a loop knot inserted in the vagina. In the interrupted method, the vaginal trauma is reapproximated with a continuous locking (blanket) stitch, with interrupted sutures inserted to realign the perineal muscles and ...