Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: The present study was conducted for comparing the efficacy of intramuscular acetaminophen versus pentazocine as labour analgesics for parturients. Materials & methods: A total of 20 subjects were enrolled. The study was done at the antenatal clinics during the health talks and in early labour. All the subjects were randomly divided into two study groups as follows: Group A: Patients receiving intramuscular pentazocine, and Group B: Patients receiving intramuscular acetaminophen. Complete demographic and clinical details of all the patients were obtained. The data collected included the socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects and hourly pain scores. Pain score was assessed by VAS on a scale of 0 to 10. All the results were recoded and analysed by SPSS software. Results: Mean VAS at 1 hour among the patients of Group B was 6.9 while that of group A was 5.5. At 2 hours, mean VAS among patients of group B and group A was 0.39 and 0.89 respectively. Significant results were obtained while comparing the mean VAS at 1 hour among the patients of the two study groups. Conclusion: The authors conclude that acetaminophen is a suitable alternative parenteral labour analgesic.