Comparison of the Efficacy of Progesterone and Nifedipine in Inhibiting Threatened Preterm Labor: A Randomized Study

The goal of this study is to compare the efficacy of natural vaginal progesterone with that of oral nifedipine in treatment of threatened preterm labor.150 women, with singleton pregnancy and threatened preterm labor between 28 to 36 weeks of gestation, were randomly grouped into two, 75 in each group. Group 1: pregnant females who used natural progesterone 200mg twice daily inserted vaginally as a tocolytic agent and group 2: pregnant females who used nifedipine 20mg orally every 30 minutes for 3 times then maintenance with nifedipine SR 20mg every 12hours. Natural progesterone and nifedipine were successful to inhibit contractions in threatened preterm labor in 82.6% (62/75 cases) and 78.6% (59/75 cases) respectively with no statistically significant difference between the two groups. Also, the mean gestational age at delivery and the Apgar scores of fetuses were similar with no significant difference between the two groups. There were more side-effects and complications in nifedipine group as compared to the progesterone group with highly significant difference between two groups.