Maternal satisfaction with single-dose spinal analgesia for labor pain in Indonesia: a landmark study

The purpose of this study was to assess maternal satisfaction with single-dose spinal analgesia for the management of obstetric pain in Indonesian women. The investigation included 62 laboring women with single pregnancy at term, with 45 primigravidas and 17 multigravidas. The participants’ ages ranged from 15 to 29 years. All participants were screened for physical health and were classified as healthy according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists classification system. All 62 parturients received single-dose spinal anesthesia with a 27-gauge pencil-point needle at either the L3–4 or L4–5 intervertebral interspace, with a combination of bupivacaine, 2.5 mg; morphine, 0.25 mg; and clonidine, 45 μg. Maternal satisfaction, duration of pain relief, and side effects were studied. The overall maternal satisfaction with the single-dose spinal technique for labor analgesia in our study group was high, with 50 patients (81%) being very satisfied, and 7 patients (11%) being satisfied with the quality of labor analgesia. Forty-nine patients (79%) stated that they would select single-dose spinal analgesia for pain control in labor in the future. Our study was the first one in Indonesia to assess maternal satisfaction with single-dose spinal analgesia for labor pain. We concluded that single-dose spinal analgesia with a combination of bupivacaine, morphine, and clonidine provided effective labor pain control for Indonesian women, and maternal satisfaction with this technique was very high. This technique is very cost-effective and should be recommended for routine obstetric pain control in Indonesia and other developing countries. Presented in part by doctors Susilo Chandra and Krzysztof M. Kuczkowski at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) in Banff, Alberta, Canada, May 16–19, 2007.