Abstract

To test that rectal misoprostol was more effective for active management of third stage of labor over the oral misoprostol, this prospective study was conducted among the 96 patients, who got admitted into the OBGY units of Dhaka Medical College Hospital for normal vaginal delivery. The primary objective was to find out whether there was any dissimilarity present between these two routes of misoprostol in case of blood loss in third stage of labor. The blood loss was measured by pre- and post-delivery hemoglobin level by using skella paper. The pre-delivery haemoglobin levels were 65.13% (±5.07%) vs 65.68% (±6.46%) in both per rectal and oral route of misoprostol groups respectively. On the other hand, those were 61.62% (±3.34%) and 56.35% (±5.07%) correspondingly. Oral misoprostol was associated with significantly more blood loss than rectal (P = 0.016). Rectal misoprostol is more effective in the management of third stage of labor. Lesser dose and other routes could be explored in the future.

Keywords: Haemoglobin, Third stage of labor, Rectal route, Oral route.