The Effects of Early and Late Epidural Analgesia on Delivery Period and Labour Practice - Abstract
Background: The purpose of this study was to search the effects of epidural analgesia applied on primiparous pregnant women in case of early and late cervical dilatation, on the phases of labour, interventional labour and the necessity for cesarean delivery, in comparison to the control group with no demand of labour analgesia.
Methods: Group I (n=25) was the early epidural analgesia (EEA) group, which the epidural analgesia began to be applied when cervical dilatation was 2-3 cm; Grup II (n=25) was regarded as the late epidural analgesia (LEA) group, which the epidural analgesia began to be applied when cervical dilatation was 4-5 cm. Grup III (n=25) was, on the other hand, the control group (C), that involved pregnant women who did not demand painless childbirth.
Results: In the evaluation of obstetrical data, it was stated that the first phase of labour is significantly shorter and the second phase is significantly longer in the groups we applied analgesia in comparison with the control group. However, this statistically significant extension of time in the second phase is within acceptable limits for second phase. We also stated that the epidural analgesia never increased interventional labour incidence, and the rate of necessity for cesarean delivery was not so much different from the control group.
Conclusion: We have concluded that it is unnecessary to delay the epidural analgesia application waiting for the cervical dilatation to proceed, in case that the labour pain comes up the VAS values (?3).