PTK, for a while the 'bolances across the river in Vancouver (WA, not BC) carried pitocin, the prescription version of oxytocin.
Now, there's a couple of things that oxytocin does in the body. One of them is in a positive feedback loop to cause labor to progress (the stronger the contractions, the more oxytocin is released, which causes the contractions to get stronger, which causes more oxytocin to be released, lather, rinse, repeat). Occasionally, docs will use it to induce labor or to accelerate it if it's not moving along at a good enough pace. Obviously, these are not things that we want to happen in the back of the ambulance. As much as we like getting the little stork pins, trust me, we really don't like going from 1 to 2 patients in the middle of the transport. Causes all sorts of excitement and commotion. However, the other thing that oxytocin does is cause the uterus to contract back down to normal size after the placenta is delivered. This causes any post-partum hemorrhage to decrease or stop in most cases.
This, as you can imagine, is a *good* thing. It's usually good if kiddo doesn't become an orphan the day they're born. Now this is only for post partum bleeding that isn't controlled with fundal massage.
