Using the drug misoprostol in combination with a Foley balloon catheter to induce labor can lead to a speedier delivery, with women delivering several hours earlier than either method alone, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania. The team’s work was published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Nearly 1 million women who deliver in the U.S. each year undergo labor induction, but the process is still costly and doctors do not agree on 1 common practice.
The research team at UPenn touted its study as the largest-ever clinical trial of labor induction methods, enrolling 500 women who needed to undergo labor induction at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The participants were randomly split into 4 different treatment arms to induce labor: misoprostol alone, the Foley balloon catheter alone, the 2 methods combined, or the Foley balloon catheter with a synthetic version of oxytocin.
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