Maternity Services: Labour Induction in India is effective and Safe, says Study

July 1, 2017: A major study of two different types of labour induction methods was published by researchers from the University of Liverpool with colleagues from Gynuity Health Care in New York and the Government Medial College, Nagpur.

It was studied that between 62,000 to 77,000 women die yearly from pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. Eclampsia is the onset of seizures in a woman with pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia is a malfunction of pregnancy which results in high blood pressure and large amounts of protein in the urine or perhaps other organ dysfunction. Onset may be before, during, or after delivery. Natural delivery is important for good maternal and neonatal outcomes.

As the number of women facing induction increases, it has become imperative to switch to methods for labour induction that are the most effective, safe and acceptable to women.

Two low cost interventions – misoprostol tablets and transcervical Foley catheterisation – are used in low resource settings.

A study by INFORM shows that, women were prescribed to either oral misoprostol tablets or Foley catheter induction in a government hospital in India. The results showed that women in the misoprostol arm had a 10% higher rate of vaginal birth within 24 hours and less need for caesarean section.

Rates of uterine hyperstimulation were very low in both groups and no differences have been observed in neonatal morbidity. Women in the misoprostol group were also more satisfied with the outcome than those induced with the catheter method.

A deep analysis on the study showed the use of low dose oral misoprostol to be more effective and more acceptable to women than a transcervical Foley catheter for induction of labour in women requiring delivery because of pre- eclampsia or hypertension.

– prepared by Naina Mishra of Newsgram. Twitter: @Nainamishr94