In pregnant women scheduled to undergo cesarean section, pentazocine may be used as an alternative to pentazocine/acetaminophen combination to provide effective and safe post-cesarean section analgesia.

A prospective, comparative and randomized study was held for comparing analgesic effect and adverse effect profile of pentazocine with another regimen including alternating doses of acetaminophen and pentazocine within the initial 48 hours post-surgery.

Overall 142 pregnant women (average age: 29.82 years) who willingly agreed to the trial and had elective cesarean section were enrolled and randomly segregated into 2 groups: (I) Intramuscular pentazocine group, and (II) Alternating doses of acetaminophen and pentazocine over the initial 48 hours post-surgery.

A total of 76 patients were given pentazocine/acetaminophen injection combination and 66 patients were given only pentazocine injection. The adverse effect profile, pain scores, and time taken for  return of bowel sounds were comparatively evaluated between the study groups.

The drop-out rate was found to be 8.5%. In the first 48 hours, no clinically meaningful difference in the pain scores of both the groups was seen on the verbal rating scale and the visual analogue scale (VAS). Additionally, no inter-group difference was observed in terms of participants' level of satisfaction,  occurrence of adverse effects, time taken for the return of bowel sounds, and requirement for rescue analgesics.

Hence, both intramuscular pentazocine and alternating doses of pentazocine and acetaminophen regimens exhibited similar satisfaction levels, side effects incidence, and analgesic efficacy.