The use of hormone implants for climacteric symptoms

Abstract

drops per minute according to the clinical effect. Isox­ suprine was discontinued 4 hours after control of the contractions was obtained. This was usually obtained after 12 to 36 hours, and then oral administration was started with 10 mg of isoxsuprine every hour. Within several days the oral dose was gradually reduced to 5 mg eight times daily. The total duration of hospitaliza­ tion was between 4 and 84 days. The rate of reduction of the dose was governed by the frequency of the uterine contractions which caused pains and side effects, such as weakness or tachycardia. When the oral regimen of isoxsu prine was started, the women were asked to assess fetal movements felt during a period of 30 minutes three times daily (morn­ ing, noon, and evening, after meals and while lying in bed on their side). The number of fetal movements calculated for 12 hours constituted the daily fetal movement recording. The mean daily fetal movement rate expresses the mean of the number of cases each individually calcu­ lated for daily average of weekly counts. Statistical analysis of the difference between the daily fetal movement rate in the ,8-mimetic-treated group and the control group at the same week of gestation was carried out with Student's t test. Table I shows the daily fetal movement rate (mean ± SD) according to the week of gestation in 102 isoxsu­ prine-treated patients between the twenty-sixth and thirty-sixth weeks of pregnancy as compared with the results of our previous study,3 in which weekly averages of daily fetal movement recordings of singleton preg­ nancies in 127 pregnant women with good outcome were presented. Table I shows that there was no significant difference in the mean daily fetal movement rate in the ,8mimetic-treated group as compared to the control group. The results of the present study show that the mean fetal activity in isoxsuprine-treated pregnant women is similar to that of the control normal pregnancies. These findings are supported by Rayburn. 4 The results also show that the pattern of fetal activity in the ,8-mimetic-treated group resembles that of the control group by increasing from the twenty-sixth week, with a plateau in the twenty-ninth to thirty­ second weeks, and then decreasing thereafter. Thus, cases of threatened premature delivery treated with isoxsuprine can be screened by fetal movement assess­ ment for the diagnosis of fetal jeopardy as in other high-risk pregnancies.