“Effect Of Late Dinner On The Onset Of Labour Pain: Observational Case -Control Study”

Abstract

Objective : To establish a co relation between consumption of late dinner and the onset of labour pains during day time(7am to 7 pm). Design: Main research article Setting: Outpatient, Dhiraj Hospital , Gujarat , India. Sample: 285 sample size (study group-142 and control group-143) Methods: Patients were selected as per the inclusion criteria & were subdivided into study and control groups ,according the computer generated randomized number. Study group patients were counselled to have dinner late by 3 hours than their usual dinner time, after 34 weeks of gestation and these patients were followed up till delivery. Main Outcome Measures :Chi Square test(p value), Relative Risk(RR) Results : In this study ,73.23% patients from the study group developed labour pain between 7 am to 7 pm (day time) . In control group, 48.25% patients started labour pain during day time.( P value : <0.001, RR-1.518).In our study, 61.97% of deliveries from the study group occurred during day time.(P value 0.0044 ;RR-1.38) Conclusions: We could infer from this study that there is a positive association between consumption of dinner late at night and onset of labour pain during day time, which was more evident in multigravidae. Also there is a positive association between consumption of dinner late at night and day time deliveries. Since this is a pilot study, more studies with a larger sample size are required to validate this proposition. Funding: None