Administration of naloxone prior to parturition delays the birth process in the pig

An acutely stressful stimulus such as relocation from a familiar strawed pen to an unfamiliar farrowing crate during birth has been shown to interrupt the birth process and inhibit oxytocin secretion (Lawrence et al, 1992). Both of these departures from normal parturition could be prevented by administration of the μ opioid antagonist naloxone. A likely site of action for this effect is presynaptic μ receptors on noradrenergic nerve terminals in the hypothalamus (Onaka et al, 1995). Such a neuro-endocrine control system, if active in the day prior to birth, might influence the timing of the onset of parturition and its subsequent efficiency even in the absence of a stressful stimulus. This experiment tested this hypothesis.