Induction of Labor: a New Method?

This happened a long time ago. We had University Examination for the M.B.B.S. students. At the end of the examination, our antenatal ward was suddenly almost empty. "Where are all our patients" I asked. "We had so many patients near term, some for induction of labor." "Sir, they have delivered" the Registrar told me happily. "You induced labor on all of them?" "No, Sir. They went into spontaneous labor." This was weird. One has to struggle so much to get women to go into labor and continue in labor. Here were a number of women who delivered by going into labor all at once. It needed looking into. I talked to the women. I searched for all possible interventions by anyone treating them. Only one factor was common to them all. They had been kept as subjects to be examined by the students in M.B.B.S. examination. Each one had had her abdomen palpated by at least six students. Such vigorous palpation trying to find fetal parts that they had either not tried to find in the past or had tried but failed to find had resulted in induction of labor in all of them. "It is probably release of prostaglandins at the placental site due to palpation repeatedly by the students, that has resulted in onset of labor in these women. Let us see what happens in the future examinations." It was not a controlled study with permission from any ethics committee, because it was not a scientific study in the true sense of the word. It was just observation of what was happening by University rules. But year after year, women admitted to the antenatal ward continued to deliver in large numbers during the course of M.B.B.S examinations. Finally I started instructing the resident doctors not to send those patients as subjects who were preterm, so that they would not deliver prematurely. Now we have another such examination scheduled next week, and I am apprehensive. Let us see what happens this year.