Vaginal progesterone in prevention of preterm labour

Introduction: Preterm birth, defined as childbirth occurring at less than 37 completed weeks or 259days of gestation since the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period, is one of the leading causesof neonatal morbidity and mortality. Across 184 countries, the rate of preterm birth ranges from 5%to 18% of babies born. Out of 27 million babies born every year (2018 data ) in India, 3.5 millionbabies born are premature. Recent literature review has shown that the use of Progesterone reducesrisk of preterm birth. But there is little information available regarding the role of Progesterone inpreventing preterm labour. Objectives: Primary objective of the study is to find out the incidence ofpreterm labour among pregnant women taking vaginal progesterone. Secondary objective istoassess the safety and efficacy of progesterone in feto-maternal outcome. Methods: This is a crosssectional study where100 prescriptions from IPD of Dept of O&G, VIMSAR, Burla of women who hadrecently undergone labour with singleton gestation and with previous history of preterm labour wereanalysed. Incidence of preterm labour among those taking and not taking vaginal progesterone werecompared. Results: There was decreased incidence of preterm labour as there is prolongation meanGestational age by 9.383 weeks among pregnant women taking vaginal progesterone. Conclusions:In the present study, women taking vaginal progesterone had significantly lowered incidencepreterm birth rate.