Methods for labor induction - Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia

Methods for labor induction |

The interest of modern obstetrics in labor induction can be demonstrated by the huge amount of scientific articles published during the last few years. The advances of medicine in general and particularly of obstetrics allowed that more risky pregnancies reach term or near term, with a maternal or fetal indication for pregnancy interruption before the spontaneous onset of labor and delivery. This leads the obstetrician to the situation of choosing between cesarean section and labor induction. With the aim of helping the obstetrician to make the choice for labor induction and thus collaborate with the reduction in cesarean section rates, it is necessary that an accessible, cheap, safe, effective, easy to be used method with good acceptability is available. Although several methods of labor induction reported in medical literature do exist, it is known that there is no ideal method. However, among them, two are highlighted. The first is oxytocin, which has the advantages of promoting physiologic uterine contractions of labor and reverting uterine hypercontractility when suspended. The other method is misoprostol, nowadays the most used, which ripens the uterine cervix and induces uterine contractions of labor. However, there are still some controversies regarding its ideal dose, route and safety.