• Ting-Ting Ni, Zhen-Feng Zhou, Bo He, and Qing-He Zhou.
• Department of Anesthesiology, NO.7 Hospital of Ningbo, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China.
• BMC Anesthesiol. 2020 Feb 26; 20 (1): 48.

BackgroundPreventing the frequent perioperative hypothermia incidents that occur during elective caesarean deliveries would be beneficial. This trial aimed at evaluating the effect of preoperative forced-air warming alongside perioperative intravenous fluid warming in women undergoing cesarean sections under spinal anesthesia.MethodsWe randomly allocated 135 women undergoing elective cesarean deliveries to either the intervention group (preoperative forced-air and intravenous fluid warming, n = 69) or the control group (no active warming, n = 66). The primary outcome measure was the core temperature change between groups from baseline to the end of the surgical procedure. Secondary outcomes included thermal comfort scores, the incidences of shivering and hypothermia (< 36 °C), the core temperature on arrival at the post-anesthesia care unit, neonatal axillary temperature at birth, and Apgar scores.ResultsTwo-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed significantly different core temperature changes (from the pre-spinal temperature to that at the end of the procedure) between groups (F = 13.022, P < 0.001). The thermal comfort scores were also higher in the intervention group than in the control group (F = 9.847, P = 0.002). The overall incidence of perioperative hypothermia was significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group (20.6% vs. 51.6%, P < 0.0001).ConclusionsWarming preoperative forced-air and perioperative intravenous fluids may prevent maternal hypothermia, reduce maternal shivering, and improve maternal thermal comfort for patients undergoing cesarean sections under spinal anesthesia.Trial RegistrationThe study was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (registration number: ChiCTR1800019117) on October26, 2018.

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