Is Propofol a safe agent for External Cephalic Version?

Abstract

Objective: Analyze ECV results when propofol is used for sedation. Design: Longitudinal prospective analysis Setting: 1st of January of 2018 and 31st of December of 2020. Population: Pregnant women with non-cephalic presentation and no contraindication for vaginal delivery. Methods: Longitudinal prospective analysis of ECV performed in a tertiary hospital between the Just before the procedure, 0.2 mg/min of ritodrine was intravenously administered for 30 minutes. Sedation or neuraxial anesthesia was performed before the ECV. Main Outcome Measures: ECV success rate, Hypotension during procedure, ECV complication rate, cesarean section 24 h after ECV. Results: 242 pregnant women underwent ECV. All data were available for analysis just in 153 cases. ECV success rate was 66.9%. Sedation was performed in 88.8% and neuraxial anesthesia was carried out in 11.2%. For the sedation group, propofol was used in 96.3%. Emergency cesarean section rate during the following 24 hours of ECV was 6.7%. No difference in the emergent cesarean section during the 24 hours following the ECV rate when sedation or neuraxial anesthesia were performed (p=0.53). Conclusions: ECV is a safe and effective procedure. Sedation with propofol is useful for analgesia in ECV. Funding: The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.