Management of prelabor rupture of membranes at term. A randomized study.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Oxytocin.

To compare the rate of obstetric interventions, length of labor, and maternal morbidity in pregnancies with prelabor rupture of membranes at term after either early or late induction of labor in both primiparous and pluriparous women.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 362 women were involved.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, women only.

362 women with singleton pregnancies, cephalic presentations, gestational age of 36 completed weeks or more were allocated at random to induction with oxytocin either 6 hours after PROM (n = 62) (early) or 24 hours (n = 62) (late).

Those eligible, but not participating in the study, totalled 238 women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

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

MAIN OBSTETRIC MEASURES: Time of spontaneous labor in the late induction group, length of labor, obstetric intervention rate, maternal morbidity, and the degree of histologic chorioamnionitis.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Delivery, Obstetric, Premature Rupture of Fetal Membranes, Labor, Induced, Oxytocin and Parity.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Oxytocin in 362 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 1993 (Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica), a journal based in United States.

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