Review article A critical and interpretive literature review of birthing women’s non-elicited pain language Stephanie Power a, *, Fiona E. Bogossian a , Roland Sussex b , Jenny Strong c a School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland, Australia b Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, The University of Queensland, Australia c School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland, Australia A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 6 October 2016 Received in revised form 8 January 2017 Accepted 1 February 2017 Available online xxx Keywords: Pain Language Pain narrative Parturition Labour cues A B S T R A C T Background: Standardised pain assessment i.e. the McGill Pain Questionnaire provide an elicited pain language. Midwives observe spontaneous non-elicited pain language to guide their assessment of how a woman is coping with labour. This paper examined the labour pain experience using the questions: What type of pain language do women use? Do any of the words match the descriptors of standardised pain assessments? What type of information doverbal and non-verbal cues provide to the midwife? Methods: A literature search was conducted in 2013. Studies were included if they had pain as the primary outcome and examined non-elicited pain language from the maternal perspective. A total of 12 articles were included. Findings: The analysis revealed six categories in which labour pain can be viewed: ‘positive’, ‘negative’, ‘physical’, ‘emotional’, ‘transcendent’ and ‘natural’. Women’s language comprised i.e. prefixes and suffixes, which indicate the qualities of pain, and figurative language. Language indicated location of pain, gave insight into other life phenomena i.e. death, and shared similarities with standardised pain assessmentdescriptors. Labour cues were ‘functional’, ‘dysfunctional,’ or ‘neutral’ (part of the physiological childbirth process), and were verbal, non-verbal, emotional, psychological, physical behaviour or reactions, or tactile. Conclusion: Labour can bring about a spectrum of sensations and therefore emotions from happiness and pleasure to suffering and grief. Spontaneous pain language comprises verbal language and non-verbal behaviour. Narratives are an effective form of pain communication in that they provide details regarding the quality, nature and dimensions of pain, and details notcaptured in quantitative data. © 2017 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Statement of significance Issue There is a need for an in-depth analysis of the spontaneous non-elicited pain language of childbirth/maternal pain narratives. What is already known Standardised pain assessment tools i.e. the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) elicit maternal language. Midwives observe verbal and non-verbal cues of labour to guide their assessment of how a woman is coping with the sensations of labour. What this paper adds Labour can bring about a spectrum of sensations and ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ emotions. Non-elicited pain language comprises verbal, non-verbal, physical reactions and behaviours, which fall under ‘functional’, ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘physiological’ cues. Maternal narratives capture details of the quality, nature and dimensions of pain. 1. Background Across cultures the experience of labour is a life-defining moment in which particular sensations may be felt emotionally, energetically, psychologically, spiritually, and at its most primal, * Corresponding author at: School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, Level 3, Chamberlain Building (#35), The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia. E-mail address: stephanie.power@uq.net.au (S. Power). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2017.02.001 1871-5192/© 2017 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Women and Birth xxx (2016) xxx–xxx G Model WOMBI 607 No. of Pages 15 Please cite this article in press as: S. Power, et al., A critical and interpretive literature review of birthing women’s non-elicited pain language, Women Birth (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2017.02.001 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Women and Birth journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wombi