PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

P Okojie

Publications and source records attributed to P Okojie.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Immediate and delayed complications of epidural analgesia in labour and delivery.

A prospective controlled, longitudinal study investigated the immediate and delayed complications of epidural analgesia in labour. One hundred and twenty-two parturients were studied: 81 had epidurals in labour and 41 had other forms of analgesia. Each parturient was studied over a period of 6 weeks. Epidural analgesia in labour and delivery is generally safe. Although the epidural group recorded more complications, they tended to be minor ones such as backache, headaches, shoulder and neck pain. Epidural blocks have an added advantage of being helpful in complicated labours like breech presentations, multiple pregnancies, pre-eclampsia, in situations where caesarean section is anticipated and in manual removal of the placenta.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

Update on some aspects of the use of epidural analgesia in labour.

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of epidural analgesia on blood pressure, duration of the second stage and mode of delivery. In a prospective controlled study carried out in a district general hospital, 122 parturients made up the study population; 81 had epidural blocks and 41 had other forms of analgesia during labour. Data were collated using questionnaires within 48 hours of delivery: 58/81 (71.6%) of those who chose epidural were primigravidae compared with 14/41 (34%) in the non-epidural group (p < 0.001). During labour, minimum diastolic blood pressure was significantly lower in the epidural group: 65.8 versus 72.4 mmHg (p = 0.003). Mean duration of the second stage of labour was significantly longer in the epidural group: 108.3 versus 41.6 minutes (p < 0.0001); 28/81 (34.6%) of the epidural group had operative vaginal deliveries compared with 6/41 (14.6%) of the non-epidural group (p = 0.0004). Epidural analgesia provides an effective form of pain relief in labour, which has a particularly strong appeal to primigravidae. It has a hypotensive effect which can be put to beneficial effect in hypertensive disease of pregnancy, but is significantly associated with a lengthened second stage of labour, resulting in an increased operative vaginal delivery rate.

Adolescent↗