European journal of anaesthesiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
General anaesthesia versus epidural anaesthesia for primary caesarean section--a comparative study.
Forty-seven healthy parturients undergoing elective Caesarean section were randomly allocated to either general anaesthesia (n = 24) or epidural anaesthesia (n = 23) under standardized anaesthetic and surgical conditions. Seven women of the epidural group required additional systemic analgesia or sedation following delivery of the neonate. Nine of 24 newborns obtained 1-min Apgar scores below 7 after general anaesthesia compared to only 3/23 after epidural anaesthesia. ⋯ Our investigation did not show either the incision-delivery interval or the start of operation-delivery interval to play a role in neonatal outcome. Epidural anaesthesia is superior to general anaesthesia in Caesarean section under normal conditions with regard to neonatal outcome. Whether this is also true for critical conditions cannot be concluded from this study.