the effect of evening primrose (oenothera biennis) oil capsule on postpartum pain in multiparous women: a triple-blind randomized clinical trial

Background & aim: postpartum pain is a problem of women after delivery, whichincrease in multiparous women. due to the side effects of chemical drugs to controlpostpartum pain and the individuals' tendency to use herbal medicine, the present studyaimed to investigate the effect of evening primrose (oenothera biennis) oil capsuleon postpartum pain in multiparous women.methods: this triple-blind randomized clinical trial examined 90 multiparouswomen two hours after a normal vaginal delivery, who had a moderate to severepostpartum pain at maternity ward of ommolbanin hospital, mashhad, iran in 2021.the participants were randomly assigned to three groups including intervention,placebo, and control group. a capsule of evening primrose oil or placebo was given tothe subjects every 8 hours for up to 4 doses. the control group received routinemedication (acetaminophen). pain severity was measured one hour before and aftereach intervention using the visual analogue scale (vas), and mcgill painquestionnaire. data analysis was carried out by kruskal-wallis, one-way analysis ofvariance (anova), chi-square and exact chi-square tests using spss software (ver.16).results: the mean severity of postpartum pain after intervention in the groupreceived evening primrose oil capsule had a significant decrease versus placebo andcontrol groups (p <0.001) and no side effects in the intervention group was observed.conclusion: evening primrose oil was effective in reducing the severity ofpostpartum pain in multiparous. so it seems that it could be recommended as a safemedication for postpartum pain relief in multiparous women.