The use of lumbar spine and gastric ultrasound in perioperative obstetric anesthesia

Abstract

Neuraxial anesthesia is a gold standard anesthetic technique employed for labor analgesia and cesarean section. Spinal cord injury can occur if the needle insertion is performed above the recommended lumbar spine level. Pre-procedural lumbar spine ultrasound scanning can provide several benefits, such as increasing first attempt success rate, reducing the number of attempts, and reducing redirection of the needle. Pulmonary aspiration during general anesthesia is a fatal complication which remains a cause of maternal mortality. Gastric content volume (GCV) is an important component related to the risk of regurgitation followed by aspiration. There is growing interest in the utility of bedside gastric ultrasound to assess GCV in non-obstetric and obstetric populations.