Cooling treatment on the reduction of category II fetal tracings

Abstract

Objectives

Epidural-related maternal fever increases the incidence of Category II fetal tracings. To compare the effectiveness of low-flow oxygen inhalation and cooling treatment for parturients with Category II fetal tracings caused by epidural-related maternal fever.

Methods

We investigated 200 pregnant women who accepted epidural analgesia during labor and had body temperature exceeding 38 °C during labor. Among the patients, 99 and 101 were randomly allocated to receive cooling treatment group (control group) and oxygen inhalation (oxygen group), respectively. The primary outcome was the incidence of Category II fetal heart rate tracings.

Results

The incidence of Category II fetal heart rate tracings in the control group was significantly higher than that in the oxygen group. However, no significant differences were noted between the two groups in terms of the Apgar scores; amniotic fluid turbidity; or maternal outcomes, including cesarean section rate, forceps delivery rate, lateral resection rate, manual removal of placenta rate, the amount of intrapartum hemorrhage, and hemorrhage at postpartum 2 h. Oxygen inhalation therapy was more effective than cooling treatment in reducing the incidence of Category II tracings.

Conclusion

Low-flow and short-term oxygen inhalation for parturients with epidural-related maternal fever reduces the incidence of Category II fetal heart rate tracings, but had no significant influence on the mode of delivery or neonatal outcomes.

Keywords:

• Epidural related maternal fever
• category II tracings
• neonatal outcomes
• maternal-related outcomes
• oxygen inhalation

Author contributions

BSZ performed data analysis; BL wrote the manuscript; QNW collected data; JXJ and XRS designed most of the investigation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data sets generated and analyzed during the present study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Guangdong Yiyang Healthcare Charity Foundation.