March 2019
Medical technologies such as antiseptics, blood transfusions, antibiotics and cesarian sections played a key role in the significant decline in childbirth-related maternal and child mortality. Among the new techniques developed in the second half of the twentieth century stands out the use of substances to accelerate and abbreviate labor, such as synthetic oxytocin.
The article Synthetic oxytocin and hastening labor: reflections on the synthesis and early use of oxytocin in Brazilian obstetrics, published in the dossier on “Labor, childbirth and infant mortality (HCSM v.25, n.4, out./de. 2018), discusses the use of the technique in the late 1950s, based on two Brazilian journals of obstetrics.
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The article was written by Marina Nucci (Post-doctoral student, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz / Fiocruz), Andreza Rodrigues Nakano (Professor at UFRJ) and Luiz Antônio Teixeira (Professor at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz / Fiocruz).
Read in Manguinhos:
Nucci, Marina, Nakano, Andreza Rodrigues and Teixeira, Luiz Antônio. Synthetic oxytocin and hastening labor: reflections on the synthesis and early use of oxytocin in Brazilian obstetrics. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Dez 2018, vol.25, no.4
