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[Obstetric anaesthesia and analgesia--new aspects from the literature]

Hinnerk Wulf1

  • 1Klinik für Anästhesie une Intensivtherapie, Universitätsklinikum Guessen und Marburg. h.wulf@med.uni-marburg.de

Anasthesiologie, Intensivmedizin, Notfallmedizin, Schmerztherapie : AINS
|August 5, 2011
PubMed

This review summarises the current (and controversial) topics in the field of anaesthesia and analgesia in obstetrics. In the British report "Saving mothers' lives 2006-2008" it is shown that the direct causes of maternal deaths are as before mainly sepsis, preeclampsia and eclampsia, thrombosis, thromboembolisms, and amniotic fluid embolism as well as haemorrhagic complications. Deaths associated with anaesthesia still involve airway complications. In the "closed claims" in U.S. American statistics, in the meantime ones finds maternal and perinatal deaths and brain damage to be less frequent whereas liability claims due to nerve damage and back pain have increased, presumably as a result of the change away from the use of general anaesthesia to the use of regional anaesthesia in obstetrics.

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