Painless labor and delivery

ABSTRACT

Labor is one of the most painful situations. Unrelieved labor pain can have adverse effects both on the mother as well as the baby. In this review article we summarized the clinical application of various methods used for painless labor and delivery, especially, the new development in epidural anesthesia and analgesia [EA] technique. We discuss the best time to introduce the epidural catheter and when to start the local anesthetic drug through epidural catheter. In the light of newer studies, we compared the mode of epidural drug delivery, continuous infusion or intermittent boluses and different adjuncts to local anesthetic used in modern practice for this purpose. In various recent research studies it was found that the volume of local anesthetic drug is more important in relieving the labor pain and providing satisfaction to patient than the drug concentration. In the end, we discuss the various complications and their prevention