influence of the mode of anesthesia on the neonatal well being after the caesarian delivery

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the influence of the mode of anesthesia on the neonatal outcome after the caesarian delivery. All the patients who were going to have a caesarian section were enrolled to the trial and their demographic data along with the Apgar Score and need for the NICU [Neonatal intensive care unit] admission, was entered in a specially designed proforma. After the data collection [from 1[st March 2010 to 28[th] February 2011] the data was entered in SPSS version 19 and was analyzed statistically. There were 1308 caesarian deliveries out of which 59.6% [n=779] were delivered electively while 40.4% [n=529] had an emergency delivery. The rate of general anesthesia versus spinal anesthesia was the same i.e. 59.2% [n=199] and 59.7% [n=580] respectively in elective delivery group and 40.8% [n=137] and 40.3% [n=392] respectively in emergency delivery group and this difference was found statistically insignificant. The Apgar Score of the neonates delivered to patients having general anesthesia was significantly poor as compared to the spinal anesthesia group and the rate of NICU admission is also high in general anesthesia group i.e. 10% [n=34] as compared to 5.8% [n=56]; this difference was also statistically significant [p=0.018]. Spinal anesthesia is associated with better neonatal outcome as compared to general anesthesia in both emergency and elective C/Section group.