Integrative and complementary practices to control nausea and vomiting in pregnant women: a systematic review
What this study found
Overall, the evidence favored several integrative and complementary practices for reducing gestational nausea and vomiting, especially aromatherapy, phytotherapy, and acupuncture-related interventions. Lemon essential oil aromatherapy, ginger, and CS6 acupressure were the most consistently beneficial approaches across the included trials. Reported examples included significant improvements with ginger in several studies, such as Jafari-Dehkordi 2017 (mean change 4.3 vs 1.1; P < 0.001), and CS6 acupressure studies such as Dundee 1988 (P < 0.0005) and Kirca and Gul 2020 (M2 4 vs 8; P2 =…
- Study & population
- Systematic review of studies in healthy pregnant women with nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, excluding hyperemesis gravidarum.
- Intervention
- This review evaluated integrative and complementary health practices used to control nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, including aromatherapy with lemon or peppermint essential oil, phytotherapy with ginger capsules or syrup and quince syrup, and acupuncture-related approaches such as CS6 acupressure/acupressure…
- Key limitation
- The included studies were heterogeneous in intervention type, dose, duration, and outcome measurement, which limits direct comparison across trials.
View source
Open PDFOriginal abstract
ABSTRACT Objective: to synthesize the evidence available in the literature on the effects of integrative and complementary practices in nausea and vomiting treatment in pregnant women. Method: a systematic review, reported according to PRISMA and registered in PROSPERO. The search for studies was carried out in 11 databases. To assess risk of bias in randomized clinical trials, the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool (RoB 2) was used. Results: the final sample consisted of 31 articles, divided into three categories: aromatherapy, phytotherapy and acupuncture. It was observed that aromatherapy with lemon essential oil, ginger capsules, pericardial 6 point acupressure were the interventions that proved to be effective. Less than half of studies reported adverse effects, with mild and transient symptoms predominating. Most articles were classified as “some concern” in risk of bias assessment. Conclusion: the three most effective interventions to control gestational nausea and vomiting were aromatherapy, herbal medicine and acupuncture, with significant results in the assessment of individual studies.