Neonatal Apgar Score Outcomes in Spinal Versus General Anaesthesia at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), Lusaka.

Background: The knowledge gap was from the fact that the type of anaesthetic drug administered during caesarean section can have effects on neonatal outcome like low Apgar score with most hospitals in developed countries now using more modern inhalational anaesthetic agents with fewer or no cardio-respiratory depressant effects e.g. Isoflurane or Sevoflurane. However at UTH, halothane is still being used for maintenance of general anaesthesia despite well documented cardio-respiratory depressant effects with very limited research done on its effects on neonatal Apgar score. The Apgar score is a means of rapid evaluation of the physical condition of infants shortly after birth. Thus this study investigated the effects of general anaesthesia with halothane versus spinal anaesthesia on neonatal Apgar score. Objective and study design: With the view of determining the type of anaesthesia administered during caesarean section with the least effects on neonatal wellbeing shortly after birth, a prospective observational cohort study was conducted at the University Teaching Hospital between May 2015 and January 2016.The scientific objective was to determine the effects of general anaesthesia with halothane versus spinal anaesthesia on neonatal Apgar score. This study involved 70 neonates, 54 were born from mothers that had undergone caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia and 16 from mothers that had undergone general anaesthesia. The data was analysed using SPSS version 16.0. Inferential analysis was conducted using logistic regression. Results: 20 neonates out of 54 (37%) in the spinal anaesthetic group had an Apgar score less than 8 at 1 minute[Fig 1]. Out of the 16 neonates in the general anaesthesia group, 14 (87.5%) had Apgar score less than 8 at 1 minute[Fig 1]. One (1.9%) neonate had an Apgar score less than 8 at 5 minutes in the spinal anaesthesia group. While 4 (25%) neonates had Apgar score less than 8 in the GA group[Fig2] The logistic regression at 1 minute Showed that it is over 11 times more likely to get a low Apgar with a general anaesthetic as compared to a spinal anaesthetic (OR 11.9), [Table 3]. The Apgar score at 1 minute in the Spinal anaesthesia group was statistically significantly higher than the general anaesthesia group (p=0.002). The logistic regression at 5 minutes Showed that it is over 17 times more likely to get a low Apgar with a general anaesthetic as compared to a spinal anaesthetic (OR 17.7), [Table 4]. Further, the 5 minutes Apgar score in the spinal anaesthesia group was statistically significantly higher than the general anaesthesia group (p=0.014),[Table 4]. Conclusion: With the results pointing to the fact that there is significant difference in neonatal Apgar score outcomes in spinal versus general anaesthesia, the researcher therefore rejected the null hypothesis. It is therefore inferred that spinal anaesthesia method has better neonatal outcomes by Apgar score measure than general anaesthesia method.