Hypnotic relaxation in the treatment of premature labor

Hypnotic relaxation was used as an adjunct to pharmacologic treatment with 39 women hospitalized for premature contractions in pregnancy. The control group received medication alone and consisted of 70 women. Treatment was started at the time of hospitalization and lasted for 3 hr on the average. Patients were also given cassettes with a hypnotic-relaxation exercise for daily practice. The rate of pregnancy prolongation was significantly higher for the hypnotic-relaxation than for the medication-alone group. Infant weight also showed the advantage of the hypnotic-relaxation treatment. Background variables of the two groups were compared and it was shown that they could not have explained the treatment effect obtained.