Objective: When conducting a caesarean section under regional anaesthesia, either epidural anaesthesia or spinal anaesthesia can be used. Patients who underwent caesarean section in our hospital were surveyed retrospectively to confirm and compare the merits and demerits of spinal anaesthesia and epidural anaesthesia to determine the most efficient approach.
Methods: Mothers meeting the American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status classification system (ASA) I or II, who underwent caesarean sections at our hospital were surveyed retrospectively. The survey targeted one hundred patients each who received spinal anaesthesia and epidural anaesthesia. The time from anaesthesia to surgical incision (A to S time), entire anaesthesia time, and the usage of vasopressor and midazolam were compared according to anaesthetic approach.
Results: The A to S time and the entire anaesthesia time of the group that underwent spinal anaesthesia were significantly short compared to the times recorded for the group who underwent epidural anaesthesia, and the use of vasopressor was more frequent in the spinal anaesthesia group because their blood pressure decline was larger.
Conclusion: The A to S time and the entire anaesthetic time were longer for epidural anaesthesia than for spinal anaesthesia. However, the haemodynamic change was smaller and vasopressor was hardly used in the former group. Therefore, the choice of the technical method will depend on the clinical, anaesthetic, and obstetric situation.
Keywords: Anaesthesia; Caesarean section; Epidural; Spinal.