www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | May-June 2016 | Vol 5 | Issue 3 Page 890 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Research Article Magnesium sulphate is it necessary to prevent eclampsia? Deepali Laxman Jaybhaye 1 *, Prashant Chaudhary 1 , Amol Gite 2 , Shkhmin Kaur 1 , Rajesh Kadam 1 INTRODUCTION Hypertensive disorder during pregnancy, (pregnancy induced hypertension /preeclampsia /eclampsia) the most common mysterious and difficult to manage, predispose to potentially lethal complications such as abruption placentae, acute renal failure, cerebral haemorrhage, disseminated intravascular coagulation, circulatory collapse and so on. The reported incidence of hypertension, including preeclampsia, eclampsia and superimposed preeclampsia and eclampsia in all pregnant women varies from approximately 3% to 10%. 1-4 Hypertension was reported to account for 15% of all antenatal hospitalization for pregnancy complications. 1,5 Preeclampsia is believed to be the third leading cause of maternal mortality and major cause of intrauterine growth retardation and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Eclampsia accounts for up to 13 % maternal mortality and 10-28 % perinatal mortality. 6 Numerous efforts at prevention, early diagnosis and treatment are being made as hypertensive disorder are major cause of adverse maternal and foeto-neonatal outcome and prevention would have significant impact on pregnancy outcome worldwide. 7 Pregnancy induced hypertension Preeclampsia and eclampsia are multi system disorder of unknown cause unique to pregnancy. Mild PIH/preeclampsia is typically asymptomatic but headache, visual disturbances, anxiety and epigastric pain are likely in severe cases. It is thought that in third ABSTRACT Background: Preeclampsia was reported to account for 15 % of all antenatal hospitalization for pregnancy complications. It causes maternal as well as fetal death by developing eclampsia Since the turn of the century, obstetrician have to decrease the incidence of eclampsia i.e hypertension complicated with seizures in pregnant women by treating them magnesium sulfate in preeclampsia. In our study we tried to find out Magnesium sulphate really helpful in prevention of eclampsia or not. Methods: This prospective study was carried out by the department of Pharmacology with the help from department of obstetrics and gynecology, in rural hospital and medical college i.e Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical sciences Sewagram, Wardha, Maharashtra, India during January 2007 to January 2008. A total of 100 subjects registered in inpatient department were included in this study. Patients were divided in to two group one group receiving nifedipine (calcium channel blockers) and other group receive combination of nifedipine and magnesium sulfate. We compared the delivery outcome of both the group. Results: Patients receiving nifedipine had good pregnancy outcome with less side effects than the patients receiving combination of nifedipine and magnesium sulphate. Conclusions: Magnesium sulphate is not necessary drug for prophylaxis of eclampsia. Keywords: Preeclampsia, Eclampsia, Nifedipine, Magnesium sulphate. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20161541 1 Department of Pharmacology, Mahatma Gandhi Mission Hospital and Medical College, Aurangabad, 431003, India 2 Department of Public Health, Jalna, Maharashtra, India Received: 14 March 2016 Revised: 18 April 2016 Accepted: 10 May 2016 *Correspondence to: Dr. Deepali Laxman Jaybhaye, Email: deepalijaybhaye @rediffmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open- access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.