USA 1987.
| Methods | Random numbers, 2:1 allocation. No information about concealment of allocation. CFU ‐ A, blinding ‐ C. | |
| Participants | 19 women with hypertension during pregnancy. Also, 41 women with postpartum hypertension, but these are excluded from this review. | |
| Interventions | Labetalol: either, 20 mg IV then 10‐50 mg every 10 min until DBP 100 mmHg or less, or 20 mg I then repeat doses of 20 mg, 40 mg, 80 mg, 80 mg every 10 min to a maximum of 300 mg or until DBP 100 mgHg or less. Hydralazine: 5 mg IV every 10 min until DBP 100 mmHg or less. | |
| Outcomes | Woman: caesarean section, no others reported separately from the postpartum women. Baby: Apgar scores, RDS, hypoglycaemia, hypothermia. | |
| Notes | Women with postpartum hypertension excluded from this review. | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Not described. |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | B ‐ Unclear. Not described. |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes | High risk | Not reported, but regimens different. |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | High risk | Not reported, but regimens different. |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | Data appears to be complete for some of the outcomes, e.g. Figure 1 included all randomised patient data. |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Low risk | All expected outcomes reported. |
| Other bias | Low risk | “There were no differences in the clinical characteristics of the two treatment groups, as shown in Table 1.” |
BP: blood pressure CFU: completeness of follow‐up CTG: cardiotocography DBP: diastolic blood pressure DIC: disseminated intravascular coagulation FHR: fetal heart rate HELLP: haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, lowered platelets HR: heart rate hr: hours ICU: intensive care unit IM: intramuscular IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction IV: intravenous MAP: mean arterial pressure MRC: Medical Research Council MgSO4: magnesium sulphate min: minutes PE: pre‐eclampsia PPH: postpartum haemorrhage PMH: past medical history RDS: respiratory distress syndrome SCBU: special care baby unit SD: standard deviation SBP: systolic blood pressure sl: sublingual