Local-Regional Anesthesia During Childbirth and Newborn Behavior

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A report by Standley et al. [Science 186, 634 (1974)] concluded that there may be a local anesthetic drug effect in neonates whose mothers received spinal analgesia; this conclusion is questioned on the basis of mechanism of action of obstetric anesthesia, failure of the authors to differentiate between the various local anesthetic drugs used [esters and amides, particularly tetracaine and bupivacaine, are discussed], failure to consider mode of delivery in analysis of the data, and the statistical methods used. Standley, Klein and Soule defend the previous data and analyses and discuss various interpretations.