A prospective cohort study by French scientists has shown that the use of tocolytics — drugs that prevent uterine contractions and are used to prevent premature birth — is not associated with the neuropsychological development of extremely premature babies who survived to age 5.5. As reported in JAMA Network Open, the study included 1,055 mothers and 1,320 babies born between 24 and 31 weeks of pregnancy.
In the study, led by Thibault Plouchart of the University of Rouen, 776 mothers were given tocolytics. Of these, 136 were given calcium channel blockers and 295 were given atosiban (an oxytocin and vasopressin inhibitor). Poisson regression analysis showed that at 5.5 years of age, neurodevelopmental outcomes were not significantly different between the preterm infants who were given tocolytics and those in the control group. Drug class did not influence the results.
