What's the max dose Pitocin is allowed at your hospital?

Fyreflie · Dec 11, 2012

Alberta (my hospital at least!) 20 mu/min with occasional higher doses at the OBs discretion.

Kayla.J.RN · Dec 12, 2012

I'm from NJ, at my hospital the max dose is 30 mu/min.... it's very rare that we ever reach that number though. In my experience so far I have never reached 30, but that's the max dose per our hospital policy.

nocturnalnurse · Dec 12, 2012

our policy's max is 20mu/min, and rarely at physicians discretion can we go above that. happens maybe once a year. Honestly, we rarely have to go above 12 and with good bishops scores, rarely above 8.

gone are the days of "pit em til they puke", thank God for that!

itsnowornever, BSN, RN · Dec 12, 2012

Ca also- 20mu/min here is the max. Never gone above 15

Sherrie49 · Dec 13, 2012

Utah- the limit at our hospital is 20 mu, with the OB able to order doses over that amount if desired. As others have stated, this is pretty rare, though.

violet_violet · Dec 14, 2012

Interesting, I've maxed at 20 mU/min and have had to turn off pit and restart at a later time.

sunshineLDRN · Dec 15, 2012

Max @ 42mU/min @ my facility and we occasionally do hit this max. But then again we have a lot of primip pretermers with severe PreE on Mag so labor is usually extremely slow going. (less pit receptors)

TX

Fyreflie · Dec 16, 2012

Max @ 42mU/min @ my facility and we occasionally do hit this max. But then again we have a lot of primip pretermers with severe PreE on Mag so labor is usually extremely slow going. (less pit receptors)
TX

That's strange! I've always noticed to my true pre-e pts tended to have really quick labours no matter what their gestation or parity. Sometimes just a prostin or cervidil is enough to get them delivered!

sunshineLDRN · Dec 16, 2012

That interesting. Do you guys use Mag Sulfate for seizure prophylaxis? We do so maybe that's the diff. Mag Sulfate being a tocolytic can prolong their labor. We also don't use Cervidil or Prostin ( Only lady partslly for induction of a fetal demise). Our first go to is usually 100mcg Misoprostil orally if they meet the criteria by our protocol (max of 2 doses). Probably not as effective as lady partsl cervidil.

Fyreflie · Dec 16, 2012

That interesting. Do you guys use Mag Sulfate for seizure prophylaxis? We do so maybe that's the diff. Mag Sulfate being a tocolytic can prolong their labor. We also don't use Cervidil or Prostin ( Only lady partslly for induction of a fetal demise). Our first go to is usually 100mcg Misoprostil orally if they meet the criteria by our protocol (max of 2 doses). Probably not as effective as lady partsl cervidil.

We do use mag but only if its severe--they usually induce before it gets that bad. We don't use misoprostol for live induction at all in Canada! Strange how different things are.

sunshineLDRN · Dec 16, 2012

We do use mag but only if its severe--they usually induce before it gets that bad. We don't use misoprostol for live induction at all in Canada! Strange how different things are.

Yeah how different, huh? I hope to do some travel nursing soon to see how things are done differently in other places. Also, though being a county hospital, we get a lot of pts who have had no prenatal care and come in only when they they are symptomatic, so catching pre-e before it gets severe is often difficult with our pt population. I would love to travel nurse in Canada. I have heard so many good things about the health system over there.