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Background: Pharmacological pain management options can relieve women’s pain during labour and birth. Trials of these interventions have used a wide variety of outcomes, complicating meaningful comparisons of their effects. Consensus about key outcomes would facilitate the development of a core outcome set to assess the effectiveness of labour pain management. Objective: To identify all outcomes used in studies of pharmacological pain management interventions during labour and birth. Design: A review of systematic reviews and their included randomised controlled trials was undertaken. Search Strategy: Cochrane CENTRAL was searched to identify all Cochrane systematic reviews describing pharmacological pain management options for labour and birth. Search terms included “pain management”, “labour” and variants, with no limits on year of publication or language. Selection Criteria: Cochrane reviews and randomised controlled trials contained within these reviews were included, provided they compared a pharmacological intervention with other pain management options, placebo or no treatment. Data Collection and Analysis: All outcomes reported by reviews or trials were extracted and tabulated, with frequencies of individual outcomes reported. Main Results: Nine Cochrane reviews and 227 unique trials were included. In total, 148 unique outcomes were identified and categorised into maternal, fetal, neonatal, child, health service, provider’s perspective, or economic outcome domains. Conclusions: Outcomes of pharmacological pain management interventions during labour and birth vary widely between trials. The standardisation of trial outcomes would permit more meaningful comparison between studies. Funding: No external funding was provided. Keywords: Labour and birth; pain management; pharmacological interventions; systematic review

Background Pharmacological pain management options can relieve women's pain during labour and birth. Trials of these interventions have used a wide variety of outcomes, complicating meaningful comparisons of their effects. To facilitate better assessment of the effectiveness of labour pain management in trials and meta-analyses, consensus about key outcomes and the development of a core outcome set is essential.Objective To identify all outcomes used in studies of pharmacological pain management interventions during labour and birth.Design A review of systematic reviews and their included randomised controlled trials was undertaken.Search strategy Cochrane CENTRAL was searched to identify all Cochrane systematic reviews describing pharmacological pain management options for labour and birth. Search terms included 'pain management', 'labour' and variants, with no limits on year of publication or language.Selection criteria Cochrane reviews and randomised controlled trials contained within these reviews were included, provided they compared a pharmacological intervention with other pain management options, placebo or no treatment.Data collection and analysis All outcomes reported by reviews or trials were extracted and tabulated, with frequencies of individual outcomes reported.Main results Nine Cochrane reviews and 227 unique trials were included. In total, 146 unique outcomes were identified and categorised into maternal, fetal, neonatal, child, health service, provider's perspective or economic outcome domains.Conclusions Outcomes of pharmacological pain management interventions during labour and birth vary widely between trials. The standardisation of trial outcomes would permit the assessment of meta-analyses for best clinical practice.

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Background Globally, 2.5 million babies die in the first 28 days of life each year with most of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Early recognition of newborn danger signs is important in prompting timely care seeking behaviour. Little is known about women’s knowledge of newborn danger signs in Papua New Guinea. This study aims to assess this knowledge gap among a cohort of women in East New Britain Province. Methods This study assessed knowledge of newborn danger signs (as defined by the World Health Organization) at three time points from a prospective cohort study of women in East New Britain Province, factors associated with knowledge of danger signs after childbirth were assessed using logistic regression. This study includes quantitative and qualitative interview data from 699 pregnant women enrolled at their first antenatal clinic visit, followed up after childbirth (n = 638) and again at one-month post-partum (n = 599). Results Knowledge of newborn danger signs was very low. Among the 638 women, only 9.4% knew three newborn danger signs after childbirth and only one knew all four essential danger signs defined by Johns Hopkins University ‘Birth Preparedness and Complication Readiness’ Index. Higher knowledge scores were associated with higher gravidity, income level, partner involvement in antenatal care, and education. Conclusion Low levels of knowledge of newborn danger signs among pregnant women are a potential obstacle to timely care-seeking in rural Papua New Guinea. Antenatal and postnatal education, and policies that support enhanced education and decision-making powers for women and their families, are urgently needed.