Changes in obstetric anaesthesia in the last twenty-five years

The last twenty-five years have provided a continuing success story in the achievement of satisfactory obstetric analgesia. Maternal mortality and morbidity from general anaesthesia has not decreased substantially. Mothers still run the same risk of inhalational pneumonitis and are even more likely to suffer the distressing experience of awareness. It must, however, be admitted that general anaesthesia for child-birth has brought increasing benefits to the new born during the last twenty-five years.