Maternal and Neonatal Outcomes Following General and Spinal Anesthesia Are Not the Same: A Systematic Review

Some other researchers also came to the conclusion during 2018 that in spinal anesthesia, the occurrence of sore throat, muscle pain, and rapid return of pain after surgery is less compared to general anesthesia. Considering the inconsistencies in the studies, we decided to systematically review maternal and neonatal outcomes following two methods of general anesthesia and spinal anesthesia.

In this review article, all databases including Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, SID, MagIran, and the Cochrane Library were searched and reviewed by both authors of this article based on PRIZMA guidelines without time and language limitations. The keywords that were selected based on MeSh and based on which the search was conducted included general anesthesia, spinal anesthesia, neonatal, maternal, outcomes, cesarean, and delivery.

Related to the examination of pain intensity after the operation in the two stages of recovery and before receiving painkillers, 44% of the participants had moderate pain and in the part after receiving painkillers, two percent of the participants had mild pain. Only three percent of the samples had a headache after spinal anesthesia, and in the general anesthesia group, all the samples had no headache.

According to the results of the present study, it seems that the use of spinal anesthesia for cesarean section compared to the general anesthesia with less pain, less painkiller consumption, higher Apgar score, higher average hematocrit and hemoglobin, no sore throat, and more satisfaction with, but the complications of nausea, vomiting, and headache after surgery are more common in the group with spinal anesthesia.