Combined spinal-epidural (CSE) is an established technique for providing labour analgesia to obstetric patients which provides rapid onset but unsustained analgesia. The epidural catheter can be used to extend and provide continuous pain relief, however during single-segment needle-through-needle CSE, the catheter is untested. This study aims to confirm placement of epidural catheters of anesthesia through the epidural stimulation test (EST) which was first described by the PI of the study for confirming placement of epidural catheters approximately 20 years ago.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
DIAGNOSTIC
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
40
EST measures sensory/motor responses
Lucille Packard Children's Hospital
Palo Alto, California, United States
RECRUITINGElectrical Epidural Stimulation Test
Investigate the ability of the electrical epidural stimulation test (EST) to determine the position of the epidural catheter anesthesia for labour analgesia after low-dose anesthetic as compared to the gold standard of clinical assessment.
Time frame: Duration of EST test (approximately 1-2 hours)
Pain Scores
Patients will be asked for a pain score by research staff approximately 3 hours following placement of the epidural catheter and low-dose anesthetics are introduced. The pain scores will be on a scale from 0-10 with 0 representing no pain and 10 representing maximum pain.
Time frame: Approximately 3 hours following introduction of anesthetics through the catheter.
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