International Journal of Nursing Research

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a common gynecological disease, frequently occurring in postpartum and middle-aged and elderly women. The core pathology is the weakening of pelvic floor support tissues, leading to organ displacement and functional abnormalities, severely impacting quality of life. It is important to clarify that pregnancy and childbirth are the core contributing factors to POP—during pregnancy, the enlarged uterus (increasing in weight from 50g to 1000-1200g) continuously compresses the pelvic floor muscles, causing micro-tears of muscle fibers and decreased elasticity; during childbirth, the fetus exerts intense traction on the pelvic floor muscles and ligaments (especially during prolonged second stage of labor or when the fetus is too large), easily causing tears or overstretching of supporting structures such as the levator ani muscle; poor postpartum recovery directly leads to pelvic floor support dysfunction. Clinical data show that the incidence of POP in women who deliver vaginally is 3.2 times that of women who have cesarean section, and the risk of POP increases by 47% within 5 years after delivery for women whose second stage of labor lasts more than 120 minutes[1]. Current treatments such as biofeedback electrical stimulation and simple pelvic floor training have problems such as low patient acceptance and poor compliance. Moxibustion at Baihui acupoint has the effects of "tonifying qi and warming yang, raising yang and lifting prolapse", and is easy to operate and has high safety. Related studies have shown that its adverse reaction rate is less than 2%, which is far lower than that of drug treatment[3]. This article combines clinical research, starts from the pathogenesis of POP in traditional Chinese and Western medicine (focusing on deepening the pathology of pregnancy and childbirth) and treatment dilemmas, analyzes the theoretical basis and mechanism of action of moxibustion at Baihui acupoint, and elaborates on its clinical value in combination with pelvic floor function training, so as to provide a reference for optimizing treatment plan.

Moxibustion; Baihui acupoint; Pelvic organ prolapse; Pregnancy and childbirth; Pelvic floor function training; Raising yang and lifting prolapse