Inhibition of spontaneous uterine contractions by gestagens

Abstract So far, in spite of the well known pregnancy maintaining effect of progesterone, not one of the many trials could succeed, in using progesterone or synthetic gestagens for tocolytic purposes. Therefore we have investigated the tocolytic effect of gestodene, which is supposed to be the most potent gestagene available at this time and which has, in addition, properties very similar to natural progesterone. In 26 uterine strips, obtained during cesarean section, we found a highly significant decrease of spontaneous uterine activity 10, 20 and 60 minutes after application of gestodene 10(-6) M.