TITLE: 
                        
                            Aromatherapy for Laboring Women:  A Meta-Analysis of Randomized  Controlled Trials
                                
                                
                                    AUTHORS: 
                                            Taizhen Luo, Meiling Huang, Huaan Xia, Yingchun Zeng 
                                                    
                                                        KEYWORDS: 
                        Aromatherapy; Laboring Women; Randomized Controlled Trials; Meta-Analysis 
                                                    
                                                    
                                                        JOURNAL NAME: 
                        Open Journal of Nursing,  
                        Vol.4 No.3, 
                        March
                                                        4,
                        2014
                                                    
                                                    
                                                        ABSTRACT: 
	Aromatherapy is the therapeutic use of oil
from herbs, flowers, and other plants. The aim of this meta-analysis was to
quantify the effectiveness of aromatherapy for laboring women. We searched five
electronic databases till November 15th 2013 including those Chinese and English
language articles. A total of 4 eligible studies were identified. Aromatherapy
was effective in reducing the length of labor, but there were no statistically
significant effects in the use of pharmacological analgesia, spontaneous
vaginal delivery, caesarean delivery and assisted vaginal birth. Due to the limited number of articles identified, the
evidence is not sufficiently convincing that aromatherapy is an effective
therapy for laboring women.