Epidural analgesia

Research on epidural analgesia covers how it is placed, how it is maintained and what it may mean for labor, birth and babies. Narrative reviews discuss epidural analgesia in labor, modern labor epidurals and labor outcomes and maternal-fetal health, and the initiation and maintenance of neuraxial labour analgesia. A review compares epidural with non-epidural or no analgesia, and a comparative paper looks at dural puncture epidural, standard epidural and combined spinal-epidural techniques.

Other work looks at specific questions: neuraxial analgesia and the foetus, neonatal health in relation to the type of anesthesia, and epidural anesthesia in scheduled vaginal breech birth. General overviews of pain management during labor and vaginal birth, and an ACOG practice bulletin on obstetric analgesia and anesthesia, also appear in the tracked set.

Parents often ask how an epidural works, how it feels, whether it slows labor, whether they can still move and push, and how it affects the baby. The research continues to look at these effects, and results depend on technique, setting and outcome measured.

An educator may want slides that describe the procedure and its range of studied effects in balanced terms. The papers listed below are the ones the Hub tracks on this topic.