The effects of epidural anesthesia on vaginal delivery

ABSTRACTAlthough delivery is a normal physiologic process, it causes a disturbing painin every woman. An appropriate pain management is necessary for the pain to beminimized and the delivery to be successfully completed. Today, the most frequentlypreferred and the most used method for pain management in vaginal delivery isepidural anesthesia. In order to reduce the negative affects and for a better obstetriccare it is of clinical importance to know obstetric anesthesia and analgesics. In thescope of this study, for the purpose to identify the effects of epidural anesthesia onmother and fetus, a total of 102 pregnants were included in the study. Epiduralanalgesia was administered in 51 pregnants while 51 pregnants in the control groupdid not receive any anesthesia.As a result of this study, it was determined that pregnants who gave birth byepidural anesthesia had more information concerning epidural anesthesia comparedto the pregnants who did not receive epidural anesthesia during delivery and that theymostly gained this information from media. Will to realize a painless childbirth is thefirst reason in preferring epidural anesthesia. It was established that a great majorityof the participants experienced excitement prior to the process of epidural anesthesia.Participants indicated postoperatively that they were much satisfied to give birth withthe help of epidural anesthesia. It was detected that epidural analgesia causedprolongation of labor process, caused fatigue of mother, increased oxygen andoxytocin requirement but did not increase the risk of intervened delivery andcesarean and also did not significantly affect the life findings. The most frequentlyobserved adverse effect is sedation and nausea. No difference was found betweenboth of the groups in terms of Apgar first and fifth minute scores. As a conclusion itis recommended that a prenatal training center be developed that all the pregnantcould take advice prior to delivery concerning advantages and disadvantages ofepidural anesthesia, complications, indications and contraindications.Keywords: Epidural Anesthesia, Delivery, Pain, Complication.v