Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Spinal Sonography for Ultrasound-Guided Lumbar Neuraxial Anesthesia
Published on: January 31, 2025
Obstetric epidural analgesia
1Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Oulu University, Oulu, Finland. rantapir@jippii.fi
Purpose Of The Review:
There has recently been a growing interest in developing and modulating the techniques of neuraxial analgesia to meet the changing individual needs of parturients for pain relief during the course of labour and delivery.
Recent Findings:
Neuraxial analgesia is now very safe. Modern low-dose spinal-epidural regimens provide efficacious analgesia, stable maternal haemodynamics and few tolerable side effects. Complications are possible, however, due to the invasive nature of the technique, patient characteristics or medical malpractice.
Summary:
Labour epidural analgesia still remains the 'gold standard' of obstetric pain management, although spinal analgesia with the single-injection technique is an attractive option due to its simplicity, reliability and efficacy. Up till now, there has been no single new drug to overcome the superiority of neuraxial analgesia in obstetrics.
Related Concept Videos
Local Anesthetics: Clinical Application as Epidural Anesthesia
Since epidural anesthetics can be infused through an epidural catheter, all types of drugs, including short-acting ones, can be administered. Chloroprocaine and lidocaine are examples of short and long-duration anesthetics, respectively. Bupivacaine...
Local Anesthetics: Clinical Application as Spinal Anesthesia
Parenteral Anesthetics: Overview
Local Anesthetics: Clinical Application as Intravenous Regional Anesthesia
One of the advantages of...
Opioid Analgesics: Synthetic and Semisynthetic Opioids
Analgesia and Pain Management
