Efficacy of Castor Oil as Labor Inducing Agent and its Fetomaternal Outcome in Tertiary Care Centre

Background: Labor is a fastidious journey and secret of its successful culmination depend on coordination between contracting uterus and ripening cervix. Induction of labor is an obstetric procedure, designed to pre-attempt the natural process of labor by initiating its onset artificially, before this occurs spontaneously. Castor oil is an herbal preparation that has been used for induction of labor from ancient Egypt until now5, but it has not achieved destined popularity. Castor oil is a vegetable oil, pressed from castor beans. Castor oil is an effective agent for induction of labor and cervical ripening at term, when compared to other methods of labor induction. Objective: Our study is being carried out to assess the efficacy of castor oil as a labor inducing agent and its fetomaternal outcome in tertiary care Centre. Material and methods: It was a descriptive study carried out at umaid hospital, Dr. S. N. medical college, Jodhpur, a tertiary care hospital in Rajasthan from month of May 2020 to July 2020. All women with 37 completed weeks gestation with single live fetus in cephalic presentation with a Bishops score less than6 and a reactive non stress test were included in the study. Results: A total of 200 patients were studied, HDOP (35.7 %) was the most common indication for induction of labor in primigravida using castor oil followed by postdated pregnancy (25.2 %). In multigravida postdated pregnancy (28.5 %) was the most common indication for induction of labor in using castor oil followed by oligohydromnios (26.6 %). Out of 105 multigravidas 90 (85 %) were successfully induced with castor oil. Among primigravida 54 (56.8 %) out of 95 were successfully induced, so castor oil is more effective in multigravida as an inducing agent for labor. Active Labor initiation in castor oil administered women (both primigravida and multigravida) was 60 %. In successfully induced group 90.2 % women delivered vaginally and 9.7 % underwent caesarean section. In successfu