High or low dose oxytocin for nulliparous women delayed in the first stage of labour: the HOLDS RCT

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Recommended treatment is intravenous oxytocin, which shortens labour but does not affect the mode of birth.

The trial did not meet its intended sample size due to a number of challenges.

Who Took Part

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

Consenting nulliparous women who had a singleton cephalic pregnancy, gestation of 37-41 weeks inclusive, confirmed delay in labour in first stage, ruptured membranes and for whom the clinical decision has been made to prescribe oxytocin.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Oxytocin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Oxytocin, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Running at several centres spread the Oxytocin study over different clinics and patient groups.

Multicentre, randomised double-blind controlled trial.

Twenty-one maternity units in the United Kingdom.

What Was Measured

This synopsis presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme as award number 14/140/44.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Oxytocin, Oxytocics, Cesarean Section, Parity, Labor Stage, First and United Kingdom.

Author keywords: CAESAREAN SECTION, FEMALE, HEALTH CARE, HUMANS, INFANT and INFORMED CONSENT.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study of Oxytocin.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2026 (Health technology assessment (Winchester, England)), a journal based in England.

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