快猫短视频

Taking Viagra during the very first stages of labour halves the need for an emergency caesarean, a clinical trial has found.

During labour, contractions reduce blood flow to the placenta, meaning some babies don鈥檛 get enough oxygen. About one in four emergency caesarean operations are performed for this reason.

鈥淢ost babies are able to tolerate this reduction in blood flow, but they may not be able to if, for example, the placenta isn鈥檛 functioning properly or the contractions are just too frequent,鈥� says Sailesh Kumar at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Kumar and his colleagues wondered if the drug sildenafil, sold under the brand name Viagra, could help to increase blood flow to a fetus in the same way that it boosts blood flow to the penis in men with erectile dysfunction. The drug works by widening the blood vessels.

The researchers gave sildenafil to 150 pregnant women who were going into labour at Mater Mothers鈥� Hospital in Brisbane. To provide a comparison, another 150 women who were also in early labour were given placebo pills.

In the sildenafil group, 51 per cent fewer emergency caesareans were needed and there were 43 per cent fewer cases of irregular heart rate patterns 鈥� a sign that a fetus is in distress. No major side effects were observed.

The researchers are now planning a bigger trial involving more than 3000 women at 16 hospitals across Australia. They hope to confirm that sildenafil reduces fetal distress and emergency caesareans, and to demonstrate that this results in better health outcomes for babies.

If this is shown to be the case, sildenafil may be routinely prescribed when labour begins, since it is hard to predict who will have problems with fetal distress and need an emergency caesarean, says Kumar.

The treatment may be particularly useful in lower to middle-income countries, where fetal distress is more likely to lead to unwanted outcomes like brain injury, cerebral palsy and even death, says Kumar. 鈥淭his simple intervention could help to change that,鈥� he says.

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