A Comparitive Study of Bupivacaine and Fentanyl v/S Bupivacaine, Fentanyl and Clonidine in Labour Analgesia by Epidural Technique

Abstract

Pain relief in labour, today, is attracting more clinical and scientific interest. The pain of childbirth is arguably one of the most severe types of pain a woman will experience in her lifetime. Our aim was to compare the duration and quality of analgesia of epidural bupivacaine, fentanyl and combination of epidural bupivacaine, fentanyl, and clonidine by intermittent bolus technique in labour analgesia. Total number of 60 parturients studied was divided into two groups randomly. All of them were between age groups of 18-26 years and their deliveries were expected to be normal vaginal deliveries. Group-I and Group-II are study groups. After delivery an additional dose of the respective drug was given before removal of the epidural catheter for further analgesia. All the newborns in both the groups were assessed for the effect of the drug by determining the APGAR scores immediately after delivery at 1min, 5 mins and 10 mins. Onset of analgesia, Duration of analgesia with the first dose, Total number of doses required, the duration of labor, APGAR score, Motor blockade, type of delivery and Quality of analgesia were the parameters measured. It may be concluded that using a combination of bupivacaine, fentanyl with clonidine during epidural analgesia for labor provides excellent pain relief, prolonged duration of action with simultaneously decreasing the top-ups required, thereby reducing the total local anesthetic requirement compared to bupivacaine with fentanyl.