[Use of intraspinal narcotics in obstetric anesthesia and analgesia]

The use of intraspinal narcotics has attracted great interest worldwide, particularly in the discipline of obstetric anesthesia. As the advent of spinal and epidural local anesthetics dramatically effected the anesthetic management of labor, delivery and obstetric surgery, likewise spinally administered opioids are emerging as safe and very effective methods of relieving post-cesarean section pain, improving labor and cesarean section analgesia in combination with local anesthetics, and injected alone in the subarachnoid space for the management of labor itself. Though intraspinal narcotic analgesia is associated with a number of side effects, with proper knowledge these adverse reactions are wither preventable or can be greatly reduced. Compared to the benefits of nearly complete pain relief in the intrapartum and postpartum periods, the price paid in terms of these side effects in minimal. The review was based on a computer-assisted search for articles published after 1975.