A study on efficacy of intravenous labetalol versus oral Nifedipine in control of acute hypertension in severe pre-eclampsia/eclampsia

Abstract

A Hypertensive disorder of pregnancy is one of the life threatening complication encountered in obstetrics. Management of hypertension in pregnancy is a challenging task, because drastic reduction of BP leads to uteroplacental insufficiency & that may lead to intrauterine fetal death and continuation of pregnancy with severe hypertension leads to adverse feto-maternal outcome. Therefore, there is a need for an ideal antihypertensive agents for effective control of severe hypertension in pregnancy. Our present study compares the efficacy of oral Nifedipine and IV Labetalol in reaching the therapeutic goal. From the results of our study we can well conclude that both the Labetalol & Nifedipine regimen are equally effective & well tolerated when used for the rapid control of blood pressure in severe hypertension in pregnancy.