Oxytocin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands

Oxytocin is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.

By the pharmaranks editorial teamReviewed against the FDA (openFDA label, NDC Directory & Enforcement) sourcesUpdated Jul 24, 2026How we research

Key facts

Available as: Injectable · Solution
Sold as: Syntocinon
Prescription?: Prescription only
Generic available?: Not in our catalog

Every oxytocin product we track (1)

Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.

Only one: Syntocinon.

Oxytocin recalls

From the FDA Enforcement database. A recall covers specific lots — not the drug as a whole.

Oxytocin and breastfeeding

From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.

Oxytocin is an essential lactation hormone released during breastfeeding that causes milk ejection and appears to have calming effect on the mother. Administration of exogenous oxytocin to mothers having difficulty in breastfeeding has not been clearly shown to have a beneficial effect on lactation success or in the treatment of breast engorgement. It might be of benefit with spinal cord injury where the neuronal connection between the breast and hypothalamus have been lost or with rare endocrine disorders such as panhypopituitarism. Effects on the infant are unlikely when oxytocin is given during breastfeeding.

Full LactMed record for oxytocin: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider instead

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised July 15, 2026. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.

What people report to the FDA about oxytocin

The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 2,687 reports naming oxytocin, and the FDA flagged 89% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:

foetal exposure during pregnancy408 reports
maternal exposure during pregnancy401 reports
exposure during pregnancy333 reports
premature baby200 reports
hypotension166 reports
premature delivery154 reports
drug exposure during pregnancy118 reports
postpartum haemorrhage118 reports

Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean oxytocin caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.

Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.

Related calculators

How long it stays in your system →

Frequently asked questions

Can you take oxytocin with other medicines?

It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run oxytocin against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.

What forms does oxytocin come in?

Across the brands we track, oxytocin is currently marketed as injectable and solution, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.

Is there a generic oxytocin?

We do not currently list a generic-labelled oxytocin product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.

Has oxytocin been recalled?

The FDA's Enforcement database lists 3 recall records whose product description mentions oxytocin. The most recent: Oxytocin 30 Units/500 mL in 0.9% Sodium Chloride for intravenous use (Sep 16, 2025). A recall applies to specific lots, not to the drug as a whole — check the record for the affected lot numbers.

Cite this page

APA: pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Oxytocin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/oxytocin
MLA: “Oxytocin: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/oxytocin.

We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.

Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.

Read the full FDA label for oxytocin on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.