Sit, Rock, Deliver: Birthing Ball Exercises Reduce Labor Pain and Improve Outcomes at Newala District Hospital, Tanzania: A Quas experiment Study

Abstract Background Labour pain and prolonged duration remain key challenges in maternal care, particularly in low-resource settings. Non-pharmacologic interventions such as birthing ball exercises may offer supportive strategies to enhance maternal comfort and labour outcomes especially at resource limited areas. There is a lack of practical training and exposure for nurse-midwives in using non-pharmacological methods (NPMs) for Labour management. This study aims to evaluate effectiveness of birthing ball exercises labour pain and duration. Methods A quasi-experiment study design with 116 participants selected by consecutive sampling technique. Data analyzed using IBM SPSS v27. Mean, standard deviation calculated and independent t-test assessed the effectiveness of birthing ball exercises, A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant, at 80% power. Results The intervention group reported significantly lower pain scores (5.31 ± 1.20) compared to the comparison group (7.59 ± 1.01) at p < .001, with a large effect size (Cohen’s d 1.11), The mean labour duration was also significantly shorter in the intervention group (4.00 ± 1.47 hours) than in the comparison group (6.88 ± 2.09 hours), p < .001, with an effect size of 1.8. Conclusion Birthing ball exercises is a potential non-pharmacological method for use in clinical settings to alleviate labour pain and improve labour outcomes