Painful menstrual cramps? This new app may help ease the pain

London: Woman suffers from the agonizing menstrual pain every month.Though there are medicines available, it just provides short-term relief.

A team of researchers have developed a new app with acupressure-based features that will help ease the pain and cramps women experience during period.

Nearly 50 to 90 percent of young women experience pain in their lower abdomen during menstruation, along with other symptoms that include headache, backache, nausea and diarrhoea.

The new app named "Luna" is developed by researchers at the Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany. Luna can be used as a form of self-care and is suitable for use at home.

The app has acupressure-based features with instructions on how to administer self-acupressure shortly before and during menstruation.

Acupressure massage uses specific points on the body to treat health problems naturally and restore the harmonious flow of qi energy, among many benefits.

The instructions on the app includes visual descriptions of the pressure points to massage or apply pressure on the body.

These instructions were found to be more effective in reducing menstrual pain than usual care alone, such as taking pain medication and hormonal contraceptives.

For the findings, researchers evaluated 221 women suffering from severe menstrual pain, aged between 18 and 34.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups, both of which received the study app and short introduction on how to administer self-acupressure shortly before and during menstruation.

After three months, results showed that 37 percent of participants in the acupressure group reported a 50 percent reduction in pain intensity.

Recently, Luna has been updated and optimised for use with iOS.

The study was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

(With IANS inputs)