Encouragement of breast-feeding

menses in each patient, one before treatment, two while on ethamsylate (500 mg four times daily from five days before the anticipated onset of menstruation for 10 days) and two while on indistinguishable doses of placebo with double-blind random allocation of each of the tablets.The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used in statistical analysis of the results.Mean blood loss was 64-8 ml before treatment and 64-6 ml during placebo therapy (P>010) but was significantly less (53-5 ml; P <0-05) during administration of ethamsylate.The mean percentage reduction in blood loss was 18-6+4-7, giving a range at the 95% con- fidence level of 8-4-28-8.Such results, if confirmed by a longer series, would suggest that a patient with an IUD in situ who complained of menorrhagia should be offered ethamsylate as primary treatment.This could prove sufficiently effective in controlling the cycle to make further manipulation unnecessary.