Healing advantages of lavender essential oil during episiotomy recovery: a clinical trial

Episiotomy is the most common perineal incision in obstetric and midwifery. Nowadays alternative and complementary methods such as Aromatherapy using essential oils are established as an alternative therapy. This research was carried out to assess the effect of lavender oil in wound healing. This randomized control trial was conducted on 120 primiparous women with singleton pregnancy, without any acute and chronic disease and allergy who had undergone normal spontaneous vaginal delivery and episiotomy. They were randomly allocated in case and control groups. Case group received lavender oil and controls received povidone-iodine. Incision sites were assessed on the 10th day postpartum. 25 out of 60 women in lavender group and 17 mothers in control group had no pain (p = 0.06). There was no significant difference between two groups in surgery site complications. However, redness in lavender group was significantly less than controls (p < 0.001). This study suggests application of lavender essential oil instead of povidone-iodine for episiotomy wound care.