ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two issues underlying skepticism: problems of the confounding of obstetric drugs and various factors and faulty statistical analysis. Strong claims have been made about adverse effects of obstetric drugs on the behavioral development of children. Poorly designed and analyzed studies ascribing effects of obstetric drugs on infant behavior may not only have misrepresented facts but may also have rendered well-designed and analyzed studies difficult to execute. Obstetric drug decisions are determined by the difficulty of individual labors. The proliferation of poorly controlled studies purporting to demonstrate adverse effects of obstetrical medication have made it nearly impossible to execute further such trials. Drug use should be associated with any factor causative of, associated with, or resultant from, difficult labors: the health status or age of mother, parity, length of labor, level of anxiety, pain or tolerance for pain, and possibly socioeconomic status and home environments.
