Synthetic Sutures Proven Best Post Delivery

Thursday, June 16, 2011, 10:14

Delivery is the most painful experience that they go through. So a new study has suggested that synthetic sutures bring less pain than natural “catgut" sutures who receive stitches after delivery (vaginal birth).

A group of researchers, led by Christine Kettle, Ph.D., of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, in England, found that women who are stitched with synthetic sutures had less pain in three days after delivery, and had taken few painkillers over the coming 10 days.

Scientists also admitted that the expertise of the person doing the stitch may also be an important aspect. And 70 percent of women who have normal delivery (vaginal birth) need stitches if their perineum (the muscles and skin between the vagina and the anus) is damaged.

Pain at the sutured tear or cut “can be distressing for the new mother when she is trying to cope with hormonal changes in her and the demands of her baby, and it can have a long-term effect on her sexual relationship," Kettle said.

When Kettle and her colleagues compared the standard synthetic sutures to synthetic stitch, the necessity of a physician or a mid-wife to remove standard stitches.

“This is an important finding," she said, “as women report that having perineal sutures removed is an extremely unpleasant procedure."

Reviewers noted that synthetic sutures were opted by women in developed countries than Catgut sutures.

This review appears in the current issue of 'The Cochrane Library'.