Giving pregnant women Viagra tablets during labour may reduce the risk of needing an emergency Caesarean section, a study has found.
There was also a lower risk of fetal distress in women who received the little blue pill.
Sildenafil citrate (the generic name for the drug sold as Viagra) works to treat erectile dysfunction by widening blood vessels and increasing blood flow.
The researchers hypothesized that this would also increase blood flow to the pregnant woman’s uterus, allowing more oxygen to reach the fetus, and so they conducted a study on 208 subjects.
Half of the women took Viagra up to three times during labour, while the rest were given a placebo. Thirteen of 104 women in the Viagra group required emergency Caesarean sections. Twenty-seven women in the control group (more than twice as many) had emergency surgery.
Researchers found that giving sildenafil citrate to pregnant women may reduce the risk of them needing an emergency C-section (stock image)
A study from the Guilan University of Medical Sciences also suggests that blood flow to the pregnant woman’s uterus increases, allowing more oxygen to reach the fetus.
“Our findings indicate that sildenafil is an effective and safe intervention to prevent fetal distress and reduce the need for emergency caesarean section during labour,” said the obstetrician-gynaecologists from Gilan University of Medical Sciences in Iran.
The results of their clinical trial have now been published in the Journal of Reproduction and Infertility.
They stated that “larger trials are urgently needed to further validate these results and establish widespread use in labor management.”
Their findings are consistent with a similar study of 300 women in Australia in 2019, which also found “very encouraging” results: a 50 percent reduction in emergency surgery among women who took Viagra during childbirth.
Fetal distress can occur when the baby doesn’t get enough oxygen, and researchers say it accounts for 22% of emergency caesarean sections during labour in the UK.
Cesarean sections carry risks of complications, including infection, blood clots, and injury to nearby areas, such as the bladder.
