Continuous Caudal Anesthesia in Three Hundred Unselected Obstetric Cases

The history of continuous caudal anesthesia for obstetrics was discussed by Edwards and Hingson1in 1942 and later by Hingson and Edwards2and by Gready and Hesseltine.3 This paper is an analysis of 300 obstetric cases at the Brooke General Hospital in which continuous caudal anesthesia was employed. In 288 anesthesia was satisfactory; in 12 it was not and supplementary anesthesia was necessary. This type of anesthesia was used for all patients admitted to the hospital for delivery with a few exceptions which will be mentioned. The 300 cases which form the basis of this report therefore represent an average group and are not selected cases. The only obstetric patients for whom this type of anesthesia was not used were those who presented definite obstetric contraindications, such as placenta previa, contractedpelvis or some abnormality of the sacrum or coccyx. This series included anterior, posterior and breech