Placental Blood Drainage after Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery as a part of the active management of Third Stage of Labour

200 patients admitted in the labour room at Government Rajaji Hospital between September 2007 to September 2008 in labour, had spontaneous vaginal delivery, who met the criteria laid under inclusion categories, were taken for this prospective comparative study. They were allocated into two groups of 100 each, group A patients had the placental blood drained and group B served as control. In each group, the duration of III Stage, amount of blood loss, complications of III stage were recorded. The results of the study were tabulated, analyzed and summarized as follows: 1. Majority of the patients 85-90% in both the study and the control groups were between 20-29 years. 2. Two-thirds of the study and the control groups were constituted by primigravidae, rest were multigravidae. 3. The mean period of gestational age, in weeks was similar in both the groups 38 - 39 weeks. 4. 70% of the study group and 79% of the control group received interventions during labour. 5. The mean birth weight among both the groups were comparable - 2.84 kg in the cases; 2.88 kg in the controls. 6. The duration of third stage of labour was 3.5 minutes in the study group and 5.3 minutes in the control group. The ‘p’ value being < 0.0001 the result was statistically significant. 7. The mean drop in Hb% level was 0.3 gm/dl in the study group and 0.6 gm/dl in the control group, this difference was also significant. 8. The mean blood loss in study group was 232.5 ml and 310.1 ml in the control group (p