The Use of Oxytocin by Healthcare Professionals During Labor

Abstract

Background Oxytocin is widely used in perinatal medicine, but it can cause serious side effects. Health professionals should be familiar with the pharmacokinetics, dosing regimen, and fetal effects of oxytocin. This study aims to explore the use of oxytocin by healthcare professionals during labor. Methods This study was conducted in one medical faculty, one training and research hospital, one maternity hospital, and one private hospital in Adana, Turkey. The sample group included 107 participants. The data were gathered using a survey prepared in line with the literature. The survey was comprised of 30 questions. These questions concern the social demographic information of the participants, the knowledge and actual oxytocin use, and the views of the participants. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results The average age of the participants was 36.76 ± 8.70 years, the mean of working experience in the delivery room was 7.79 ± 7.73 years. 85.6% of the participants who answered the question of possible effects of oxytocin as contraction, 57.9% of the possible side effects as fetal distress. 69.2% of the participants stated that they applied oxytocin after dilution in a fluid while 47% stated that they applied it after dilution in fluid with 5% Dextrose. While 40% of the participants responded that they sometimes forgot to administer medication, 39.2% stated that they did not register medication in their survey responses. Conclusion It was determined that most of the participants answered the questions about the effect of oxytocin correctly, but they could not respond to all the side effects of oxytocin. It was found that most of the participants could not answer the storage conditions that are important for the effectiveness of the drug correctly. In addition, the importance level given to the principles of drug administration by the participants was generally found to be high.

Intrapartum exposure to synthetic oxytocin, maternal BMI, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children within the ECHO consortium

“…Given these reports, we explored a potential joint effect between sOT exposure and maternal pre-pregnancy BMI on offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes in our study. Our finding that sOT was associated with lower odds of ADHD among offspring of mothers with pre-pregnancy obesity might be explained, at least in part, by confounding by indication, whereby mothers with obesity, and diminished uterine contractility, were more likely to be delivered promptly by C-section after an initial, possibly non-productive induction using sOT, thereby mitigating fetal exposure to the intense stress of labor that is typically involved during sOT exposure [ 90 , 91 ]. This may also explain our observed trend of more frequent sOT childbirth intervention among mothers with pre-pregnancy obesity.…”