• J. Matern. Fetal. Neonatal. Med. · Apr 2021

    Nalbuphine: a candidate for treatment of women overwhelmed with sudden, intense labor pain?

    • Seraina Schoppmann, Deborah Spiess, Daniel Müller, Andrea Burch, Roland Zimmermann, and Ana Paula Simões-Wüst.
    • Department of Obstetrics, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
    • J. Matern. Fetal. Neonatal. Med. 2021 Apr 25: 1-3.

    AimOn very rare occasions, women are overwhelmed with sudden, intense labor pain in the context of ultra-rapid late second stage of labor, especially when the head is crowning. The consequences may comprise serious pelvic floor damage for the mother and hypoxia for the fetus. Drugs like nalbuphine for immediate maternal analgesia and sedation would be helpful. This mixed opioid agonist-antagonist, that was used in obstetric anesthesia in the 1980s, acts quickly while side effects for the mother are minor. To better estimate possible complications for the fetus of a use shortly before birth, it is important to find out how quickly i.v. administered nalbuphine reaches fetal circulation. Therefore, we characterized the transplacental transfer of nalbuphine using an ex vivo model.MethodsPlacentas were obtained from cesarean sections after mothers gave their informed consent. Upon cannulation of one cotyledon, nalbuphine was added to the maternal circuit (calculated final concentration 100 ng/mL) and the ex vivo placenta perfusions were performed. To determine nalbuphine transfer from maternal to fetal circuit in the successful perfusions (n = 5), samples were collected at different time points.ResultsAt perfusion start, the measured initial nalbuphine concentrations in the maternal and fetal circuits are 93.1 and <0.1 ng/mL, respectively. After 5 min of placenta perfusion, 2.5 ng/mL nalbuphine (i.e. 3% of the initial nalbuphine concentration in the maternal circuit) is reached in the fetal circuit; after 15 and 30 min, 9.7 and 15.8 ng/mL (approximately 10 and 16% of initial maternal, respectively).ConclusionsOnly a small amount of nalbuphine is likely to reach the fetus during the first minutes after (i.v.) maternal administration. Nalbuphine might be a valuable candidate for clinical use in the i.v. analgesia and sedation of women overwhelmed with sudden labor pain in the context of ultra-rapid second stage of labor.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…