Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: Labour is generally considered to be a painful experience and analgesia is regularly required. Stretch of the cervix during dilatation, ischaemia of the muscle wall of the uterus with buildup of lactate and stretch of the vagina and perineum in the second stage are the probable causes of labour pain. Hence; the present study was undertaken for assessing the efficacy of an intravenous infusion of acetaminophen during the active phase of labour. Materials & methods: A total of 50 pregnant females were enrolled. All the subjects were broadly divided into two study groups, with 50 patients in each group, as follows: Group 1: Patients received IV Acetaminophen, Group B: Patients reviving matched placebo. Secondary outcome measures included duration of labour, and VAS. Results: 13 subjects of the group 1 and 15 subjects of the group 2 belonged to the age group of 21 to 30 years. No-significant results were obtained while comparing the age-wise distribution of subjects of both the study groups. Mean duration of first stage labour among the subjects of the group 1 and group 2 was 349.5 minutes and 613.8 minutes respectively. Significant results were obtained while comparing the mean duration of first stage of labour among group 1 and group 2. Mean VAS after 30 minutes among subjects of group 1 and group 2 was 7.11 and 6.13 respectively. Significant results were obtained while comparing mean VAS after 30 minutes among subjects of the group 1 and group 2. Conclusion: Intravenous acetaminophen is an efficacious non-opioid drug for relieving labour pain and decreasing duration of labour without any significant adverse effects.