“Synthetic oxytocin (oxytocin is the labour hormone) administered in labor does not act like the body’s own oxytocin. First, Pitocin-induced contractions are different from natural contractions, and these differences can have significant effects on the baby. For example, waves can occur almost on top of each other when too high a dose of Pitocin is given, and it also causes the resting tone of the uterus to increase.
Such over-stimulation (hyperstimulation) can deprive the baby from the necessary supplies of blood and oxygen, and so produce abnormal FHR (fetal heart rate) patterns, fetal distress (leading to cesarean section), and even uterine rupture.
Birth activist Doris Haire describes the effects of Pitocin on the baby:
“The situation is analogous to holding an infant under the surface of the water, allowing the infant to come to the surface to gasp for air, but not to breathe.”
These effects may be partly due to the high blood levels of oxytocin that are reached when a woman labors with Pitocin. Theobald calculated that, at average levels used for induction or augmentation/acceleration, a woman’s oxytocin levels will be 130 to 570 times higher than she would naturally produce in labor. Direct measurements do not concur, but blood oxytocin levels are difficult to measure. Other researchers have suggested that continuous administration of this drug by iv infusion, which is very different to its natural pulsatile release, may also account for some of these problems.
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