Pattern and outcome of Anaesthesia techniques in patients presenting with pre-eclampsia/eclampsia for caesarean section in a Teaching Hospital

Objectives: To review the pattern of anaesthesia techniques among pregnant women with pre-eclampsia or eclampsia who had caesarean section in our health facility and their management outcomeMethods: A retrospective analysis was undertaken for all the obstetric patients with pre-eclampsia or eclampsia who had caesarean sections under different types of anaesthesia in a tertiary hospital between January 1st 2014 and December 31st 2018.Results: A total of one hundred and eighty-two patients who presented with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia had emergency caesarean sections. Of these, 134 (74%) were diagnosed pre-eclampsia and 48 (26%) had eclampsia. The mean age was 29.71±6.40years. Subarachnoid block was performed in 165 (90.66 %), 15 (8.24 %) had general anaesthesia relaxant technique, and the remaining two (1.10 %) had local anaesthetic infiltration ± total intravenous anaesthesia. Peri-operative anaesthetic complications encountered included post-anaesthetic shivering 19 (10.44%), hypotension 16 (8.79 %) and nausea 1 (0.55 %). Incidence of death on table was six percent (11 patients). Among those that died, the anaesthesia technique was general anaesthesia in eight cases (73%) while three patients (27%) had subarachnoid blocks.Conclusion: Spinal anaesthesia was the most commonly used anaesthesia technique in this centre for patients with pre-eclampsia and conscious eclamptic patients, and it proved to be a relatively safe technique with few mortality.