Maternal oxygen desaturation with intravenous magnesium therapy.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Magnesium Sulfate and Phenobarbital, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To describe the occurrence, treatment, and outcome of maternal oxygen desaturation during magnesium sulfate therapy.

A post hoc analysis of a randomized double-blind trial, designed to determine if mothers at risk for premature delivery treated with phenobarbital and vitamin K had less frequent intracranial hemorrhage in their newborns, was done.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

A subset of these patients at imminent risk for delivery received both intravenous magnesium sulfate and intravenous study drug (phenobarbital or placebo) and was monitored with maternal oxygen saturation monitoring.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Magnesium Sulfate group and the comparison group should start out alike.

As a double-blind Magnesium Sulfate study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

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

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Magnesium Sulfate, Oxygen, Phenobarbital and Pregnancy Complications.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Magnesium Sulfate and Phenobarbital.

Its findings take up roughly 7 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 1997 (Obstetrics and gynecology), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.