Background: Childbirth is one of the most painful events that a woman experiences in her life, the pain is so severe that it exceeds chronic disease conditions. Even though, delivery is a natural process, the pain which the laboring women undergoes is considered severe in most of the cases. To alleviate labor pain, several alternative therapies are emerging and this study focuses on the effectiveness of massage therapy.

Method: Systematic review method was used in this study. The main electronic databases used were DISCOVER, MEDLINE, SCIENCE DIRECT, CINAHL PLUS, Psych INFO, PubMed, Web of science, PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library for the systematic review. The first search produced 2,227 results. On rigorous analysis and based on inclusion and exclusion criterion 17 studies were found to be adequate. In addition, CASP tool was applied to check the validity and reliability of the studies. Finally, 8 studies were chosen for systematic review.

Results: The main themes identified in this systemic review were majority of the pregnant women in the studies need pain relief during labor irrespective of caste, creed, race and is directly related/proportional to their satisfaction in childbirth experience. The socio-demographic and biologic variables which includes age, parity, race, ethnicity and psychological factors are directly related to variations in pain perception among pregnant women. The massage therapy is effective in reducing labor pain among pregnant women especially stressed and anxious women. Massage therapy compared with other complementary / alternative therapies such as acupressure, music therapy and aromatherapy are effective in reducing labor pain and massage therapy is very effective among depressed women.