Oxytocin bolus versus oxytocin bolus and infusion for control of blood loss at elective caesarean section: double blind, placebo controlled, randomised trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Oxytocin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To determine the effects of adding an oxytocin infusion to bolus oxytocin on blood loss at elective caesarean section.

Who Took Part

The study group was 2069 women.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, women only.

2069 women booked for elective caesarean section at term with a singleton pregnancy.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The women were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the women and researchers unaware of who received Oxytocin.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Oxytocin group a baseline to be compared against.

Double blind, placebo controlled, randomised trial, conducted from February 2008 to June 2010.

Five maternity hospitals in the Republic of Ireland.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Blood Loss, Surgical, Cesarean Section, Elective Surgical Procedures, Oxytocics, Oxytocin and Postpartum Hemorrhage.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 2069 women.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2011 (BMJ (Clinical research ed.)), a journal based in England.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.