Smoke or smokeless moxibustion treatment for breech presentation: A three-arm pilot trial.
Akiko Higashihara, Shigeko Horiuchi
PMID 33999503WHAT IT FOUND
Smokeless moxibustion at home had more fetuses head-down after treatment than control.
Smoke moxibustion did not. At birth, the groups were not shown to differ, and this was a small non-randomized pilot.
Key findings
01After 10 to 14 days, 12 of 20 women in the smokeless moxibustion group had a cephalic presentation, compared with 5 of 20 in the control group, and the difference favored smokeless moxibustion.
02At birth, cephalic presentation rates did not differ significantly among the groups when analyses included or excluded women who had external cephalic version.
03The pilot found no significant differences among groups in maternal and neonatal well-being outcomes, including premature birth, rupture of membranes before 37 weeks, low Apgar score, low cord blood pH, NICU admission, and fetal death.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The groups were recruited in sequence rather than randomly assigned, so differences between groups may not be due to the treatment alone. Only twenty women in each group were analyzed, so the study is too small to prove that either moxibustion method works. The study was done in four obstetric settings in Tokyo, Japan, so results may not apply to other populations or care systems. Women who remained breech could choose external cephalic version, and excluding them from some analyses made the groups smaller and less informative.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests. The study was funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI. The first author designed the study, collected and analyzed data, and drafted the initial manuscript; the second author co-conceptualized the study, supervised protocol design, guided analysis, and revised the manuscript.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that smokeless moxibustion makes babies turn by birth or reduces cesarean section. The difference was only at the end of the ten to fourteen day treatment period, and at birth the groups were not shown to differ in this small non-randomized pilot.