Epidural analgesia for labour and delivery. Current evidence

Currently, evidence-based medicine indicates that epidural analgesia (EA) labor is not associated with cesarean and instrumental delivery for dystocia. This evidence was obtained from clinical investigations of variability in clinical labor management. An optimized balance between anesthesiological and obstetric practice is vitally important for securing spontaneous delivery. The total dose of local anesthetic for EA may be associated with operative delivery when there is a lack of obstetric care standardization and co-interventions reducing unintended EA effects. Furthermore, combining local anesthetic low dose and opioid low dose may produce a new balance with obstetric management. Physiological and pharmacological knowledge together with recent clinical findings suggest that combined opioid-local anesthetic low dose EA causes minimal negative effects on labor progress and is effective and safe in terms of maternal and neonatal outcome. Internal communication between obstetricians and anesthesiologists is essential for optimizing EA labor management. Processes of health care quality management, such as medical audit and peer review, should be routinely practiced to reach this goal.     

Epidural butorphanol-bupivacaine for analgesia during labor and delivery

A double-blind, randomized, dose-response study of a combination of 0.25% bupivacaine combined with 0, 1, 2, or 3 mg of butorphanol was studied in 40 laboring parturients. The optimal dose of butorphanol combined with 8.5 to 10 ml 0.25% bupivacaine was 2 mg; with 2 mg, the duration of analgesia was significantly greater and the time to onset of analgesia significantly shorter than when no butorphanol was added, and the amount of bupivacaine could be reduced 50%. Adverse fetal effects were not observed except that of a low amplitude sinusoidal fetal heart rate pattern with doses of 3 mg butorphanol. All neonatal observations were normal. It is concluded that epidural butorphanol can be a useful and safe adjunct to bupivacaine used for epidural analgesia during labor.     

Epidural analgesia for labour and delivery: informed consent issues

Objective

Many anaesthetists believe that informed consent for epidural analgesia during labour is inadequate. Patients are perceived to be poorly informed and unable to cope with the information given during labour for informed consent. We reviewed these two hypotheses: A) to define complications for which patients want information; B) to quantify the influence of pain, anxiety, opioid premedication, and the importance of level of education, on a patient’s level of satisfaction with regard to the consent process; and C) to assess how satisfactory epidural pain relief correlates with satisfaction with the consent process.

Methods

Sixty patients were surveyed during the first two months after vaginal delivery by two interviewers. Questions related to demographics, seventy of labour pain, level of satisfaction with the epidural anaesthetic, risk of complications and satisfaction with information received were either categorical or scored on a scale from 0 to 10.

Results

All epidural related complications were considered important to disclose (8,4/10). The level of satisfaction with the consent process was 8.1/10. Patient satisfaction was not affected by opioid premedication, anxiety, pain score, education group or level of pain relief.

Conclusion

Patients indicated they should be informed of all possible complications associated with epidural analgesia, regardless of severity or risk. In contrast to reports in the literature, non disclosure of serious risks during iabour was not acceptable to parturients.     

Epidural morphine with butorphanol for postoperative analgesia after cesarean delivery

Epidural morphine has been used more and more to provide long-lasting postoperative analgesia after cesarean delivery. However, the incidence of pruritus (20%-93%) and nausea (17%-60%) detract from the usefulness of epidural morphine. The purpose of this study was to evaluate, in 30 patients having epidural anesthesia for cesarean delivery, the analgesic efficacy and side effects when a combination of epidural morphine, a mu-receptor agonist, and butorphanol, a mu-receptor antagonist and kappa-receptor agonist, was administered. After clamping of the umbilical cord, patients received 4 mg epidural morphine with 3 mL of normal saline (group 1), 4 mg epidural morphine with 1 mg butorphanol and 2 mL of normal saline (group 2), or 4 mg epidural morphine with 3 mg butorphanol (group 3). Patients were monitored for 24 h after administration of the study medications. There were no significant differences between the groups in visual analogue pain scores, time to first analgesic request, respiratory rate, or Trieger dot test performance in the 24 h immediately after these epidural injections. There were three patients in group 1 and one patient in group 2 who experienced oxygen saturations less than 90%. (No patients in group 3 developed an oxygen saturation less than 92%.) The patients in group 3 did not require treatment for pruritus or nausea, a response significantly different (P less than 0.001 and P less than 0.05, respectively) from group 1 or group 2.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Epidural patient-controlled analgesia: an alternative to intravenous patient-controlled analgesia for pain relief after cesarean delivery.

Epidural administration of an opioid analgesic by means of a patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) system was compared with conventional intravenous PCA for pain relief after cesarean delivery. One hundred seventeen healthy women were randomly assigned to receive hydromorphone either intravenously (IV-PCA) or epidurally (EPI-PCA) after cesarean delivery with epidural bupivacaine for operative anesthesia. The hydromorphone requirements were 3.4 and 4.2 times more in the IV-PCA group on the first (P less than 0.01) and second (P less than 0.01) postoperative days, respectively. The mean number (+/- SD) of PCA demands during the first 24 h after the operation was 105 (+/- 88) for the IV-PCA group and 33 (+/- 48) for the EPI-PCA group (P less than 0.01). This difference was also significant 24-48 h after surgery. Although the EPI-PCA group utilized significantly less opioid medication, pain and sedation scores were similar in the two treatment groups; however, a significantly larger percentage of patients in the IV-PCA group (46% vs 22%) stated that they felt drowsy during the first postoperative day. Pruritus was reported more frequently in the EPI-PCA (67%) than in the IV-PCA (33%) group. Nausea was experienced by only 10% of patients in the IV-PCA and 6% in the EPI-PCA group. There was no evidence of postoperative respiratory depression, with minimal oxygen saturation values of 93% (+/- 3%) and 94% (+/- 1%) in the IV-PCA and EPI-PCA groups, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Epidural analgesia and the rate of cesarean delivery]

OBJECTIVES: To assess the influence of epidural analgesia on the increased rate of cesarean delivery and to analyze associated factors. PATIENTS AND METHOD: Prospective study enrolling 1,714 women in labor to whom epidural analgesia was offered; 719 received epidural analgesia and 995 did not. We recorded age, weight, height, parity, gestational age, duration of labor, manner of onset of labor, delivery, birth weight, Apgar score and pH in the umbilical artery and vein. Student t, Hotteling's t2 and chi-squared tests were used to compare the results. Multiple logical regression analysis was used to determine the variable or variables having the most effect on the rate of cesarean delivery. RESULTS: Labor lasted longer in the group of women who received epidural analgesia than in those who did not (234 +/- 90 versus 181 +/- 43 minutes) and the epidural group had significantly higher rates of induced labor (50% versus 15%), instrument-assisted delivery (19% versus 5%) and cesarean delivery (21% versus 8%). Cesarean sections were more frequent among women whose labor was induced and in nulliparous women in both groups. Logical regression analysis showed that epidural analgesia was the most significant variable affecting delivery by cesarean section. The next most influential variable was induction of labor. Parity was not significantly related to delivery by cesarean. CONCLUSIONS: Epidural analgesia increased the likelihood of cesarean delivery in our study. The same factors that most often encourage women to accept epidural analgesia (induced labor, greater pain, prolonged labor, etc.) may predict increased likelihood of cesarean delivery.     

Epidural hydromorphone with and without epinephrine for post-operative analgesia after cesarean delivery

The efficacy of epidural hydromorphone alone or in combination with epinephrine for postoperative analgesia was evaluated in 30 healthy women who underwent cesarean delivery with epidural anesthesia. They were assigned randomly to receive either 1.5 mg hydromorphone alone (N = 15) or 1.5 mg hydromorphone with 1/200,000 epinephrine (N = 15). Duration of analgesia (mean +/- SD) was 24.3 +/- 9.4 hours after the epidural injection of hydromorphone plus epinephrine. This was significantly greater (p less than 0.01) than the duration of 18.2 +/- 5.9 hours after the same dose of plain hydromorphone. Analgesia was more rapid in onset and significantly better at the 0.5, 1, 3, and 12 hours postoperatively in the hydromorphone-epinephrine group. Side effects including pruritus (73%), nausea (20%), and vomiting (15%) were of similar frequency with and without epinephrine. Although mean venous PCO2 (PvCO2) levels three and six hours after the hydromorphone-epinephrine dose were elevated significantly over the pre-drug PvCO2 levels, no respiratory depression was detected by an apnea monitor to which all patients were connected. The addition of epinephrine to epidural hydromorphone hastened onset and prolonged the duration of analgesia after cesarean section.     

Epidural and spinal agents for postoperative analgesia.

The discovery of opioid receptors and the subsequent development of the technique of epidural and intrathecal opioid administration are undoubtedly two of the most significant advances in pain management in recent decades. The use of spinal opioids is widespread and increasing. The technique is used widely to treat intraoperative, postoperative, traumatic, obstetric, chronic, and cancer pain. Newer developments include the increasing use of combined local anesthetics and opioids or nonopioids and also PCEA, particularly in the obstetric population. Meta-analysis of controlled trials has demonstrated improved pulmonary outcome in patients receiving epidural postoperative analgesia. Although rare, respiratory depression continues to be a major problem of the technique. None of the currently available opioids is completely safe; however, extensive international experience has shown that patients receiving spinal opioids for postoperative analgesia can be safely nursed on regular wards, provided that trained personnel and appropriate guidelines are available. The importance of a good acute pain service to provide the safe and effective use of spinal opioids cannot be overemphasized.