Clinical Study
Effects of a New Patient Safety-Driven Oxytocin Dosing Protocol
on Postpartum Hemorrhage
David S. McKenna, Kari Rudinsky, and Jiri Sonek
Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, OH 45409, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to David S. McKenna; dsmckenna@mvh.org
Received 11 November 2013; Accepted 4 April 2014; Published 27 April 2014
Academic Editor: Jeffrey Keelan
Copyright © 2014 David S. McKenna et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Objective. To determine if there was an increase in postpartum (PP) hemorrhage after decreasing the PP oxytocin dose from 40 to
30 units. Study Design. Retrospective cohort study comparing 8 months before to 8 months after the change. PP day 1 hemoglobin
was subtracted from admission hemoglobin. Mean change was compared by Student’s t-test. The best fit polynomial was analyzed
for trends between the two time frames. Women who received blood transfusions were excluded. Results. 73/3564 (2.0%) women
received blood transfusions in the pre group and 64/3295 (1.9%) women in the post group,