Practice Bulletin No. 177 Summary: Obstetric Analgesia and Anesthesia.

Practice Bulletin No. 177 Summary: Obstetric Analgesia and Anesthesia. Obstet Gynecol. 2017 Apr;129(4):766-768 Authors: Abstract Labor causes severe pain for many women. There is no other circumstance in which it is considered acceptable for an individual to experience untreated severe pain that is amenable to safe intervention while the individual is under a physician's care. Many women desire pain management during labor and delivery, and there are many medical indications for analgesia and anesthesia during labor and delivery. In the absence of a medical contraindication, maternal request is a sufficient medical indication for pain relief during labor. A woman who requests epidural analgesia during labor should not be deprived of this service based on the status of her health insurance. Third-party payers that provide reimbursement for obstetric services should not deny reimbursement for labor analgesia because of an absence of "other medical indications." Anesthesia services should be available to provide labor analgesia and surgical anesthesia in all hospitals that offer maternal care (levels I-IV) (1). Although the availability of different methods of labor analgesia will vary from hospital to hospital, the methods available within an institution should not be based on a patient's ability to pay.The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists believes that in order to allow the maximum number of patients to benefit from...
Source: Pain Physician - Category: Anesthesiology Tags: Obstet Gynecol Source Type: research