Does early administration of epidural analgesia affect obstetric outcome in nulliparous women who are in spontaneous labor?

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin and Bupivacaine in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether early administration of epidural analgesia affects obstetric outcome in nulliparous women who are in spontaneous labor.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 344 women were involved.

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

Each patient was randomized to receive either early or late epidural analgesia.

Randomization occurred only after the following conditions were met: (1) the patient requested pain relief at that moment, (2) a lumbar epidural catheter had been placed, and (3) the cervix was at least 3 cm but less than 5 cm dilated.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

Because people in this Oxytocin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Patients in the early group immediately received epidural bupivacaine analgesia.

Ten of the 344 patients were excluded because of a protocol violation or voluntary withdrawal from the study.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Analgesia, Epidural, Analgesia, Obstetrical, Bupivacaine, Labor Stage, First, Nalbuphine, Oxytocin and Parity.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Oxytocin and Bupivacaine in 344 women.

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

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 1994 (Anesthesiology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the related Oxytocin library page, all human trials.