Comparison of Efficacy of Refrigerated Oxytocin with Oxytocin Kept at Room Temperature for the Prevention of Post-Partum Haemorrhage in Vaginal Deliveries in a Tertiary Care Setting
Authors: U Pandey 
Published: February 2021

Introduction: Postpartum haemorrhage is one of the leading causes of maternal death worldwide and it accounts for nearly one-quarter of all maternal deaths and almost half of all postpartum deaths in low-income countries. Primary postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is the most common form of major obstetric haemorrhage. Materials and Methods: The study protocol was comprised of Consent, Measurement of Pre-delivery Hemoglobin, Administration of the Intervention, Measurement of postpartum blood loss and Measurement of Post-delivery (24-48 hours) Hemoglobin. Blood loss was measured using a calibrated drape. The drape was placed beneath the parturient buttocks and secured around her abdomen with ties. Blood loss was monitored for a minimum of one hour and was continued in the second hour in case of persistent bleeding. The drape with the collected blood was weighed on a scale. The weight of the drape and the container in which it is placed was deducted from the total recorded weight in order to obtain the weight of the blood collected in the drape. Blood loss weight in grams was converted to milliliters by dividing the figure in grams by 1.06 (blood density in grams per milliliter). Results: The cross tabulations were used to study the demographic, obstetrical and medical factors in women with obstetrical haemorrhage. Table 1 shows the selected sociodemographic characteristics of the study population. The mean age of cases and controls are 26.333.559 and 26.853.873 respectively. On comparison, they are statistically insignificant. (p=0.324). The educational, occupational and socioeconomic status was comparable between cases and controls (p >0.05). Table 2 shows Antenatal, intra-partum and post-partum data in cases and controls. Discussion & Conclusion: It is a study done in North India comparing the Oxytocin kept at room temperature with failure of maintenance of cold chain during transport and storage and the refrigerated Oxytocin. It is the common understanding and general training that Oxytocin must be stored in the refrigerator, failing which its efficacy reduces i.e. it, will not be effective in controlling PPH. During the study we compared the mean blood loss and change in hemoglobin levels in cases and control and despite the fact that major risk factor for PPH for example past history of PPH, past history of D&C, prolonged third stage labour duration, manual removal of placenta were comparable in both cases and controls, still the mean blood loss and change in hemoglobin values was more in cases than controls. This could be attributed to usage of market oxytocin which had failed cold chain maintenance resulted in less effective oxytocin in prevention of PPH, Hence causing more blood loss and drop in hemoglobin values. This shows the need of room temperature stable uterotonic drug in LMIC’s like ours. Recently room temperature stable carbetocin shows the potential as an effective uterotonic drug for the prevention of PPH. However according to various studies carbetocin cannot be used for induction or augmentation of labour so it cannot replace oxytocin fully, rather it acts as a part of collective PPH reduction strategy