Leg Wrapping and Norepinephrine for Prevention of Post Spinal Hypotension in C.S

Plain-language summary

Maternal hypotension after subarachnoid block is considered one of the most common complications that occurs during cesarean delivery, with an incidence of up to 70-80%. Maternal hypotension has adverse effects on both the mother and the fetus such as maternal nausea, vomiting, dizziness, cardiovascular collapse, fetal acidosis, and low Apgar scores).Hence, the prevention of spinal anesthesia-induced hypotension became a topic of great interest for clinicians as well as in literature aiming to improve maternal and neonatal safety. The main etiologies of spinal anesthesia-induced hypotension are aortocaval compression caused by a gravid uterus before delivery of the baby, blood pooling in the lower limbs, and loss of vascular tone as a result of sympatholysis during spinal anesthesia. Based on those mechanisms, Various prophylactic methods have been suggested and tried, including intravenous fluid loading, vasopressors, and physical interventions such as left lateral tilt, leg elevation, and wrapping with crepe bandage (CB). Fluid co-loading with Crystalloids is considered superior to crystalloid preloading and equivalent to colloid preloading. Despite that fluid loading decreased the incidence of hypotension, more interest was directed to vasopressors such as ephedrine, phenylephrine, and norepinephrine. Different regimens have been investigated including continuous infusion or boluses of those vasopressors with promising results reaching lower incidences of hypotension after intrathecal anesthesia but those incidences are still considerable and efforts are made to reach the optimum doses and least hypotension incidences. Lower limb wrapping with crepe bandages is a simple, non-invasive, nonpharmacological, cost-effective tool that stops blood from pooling in the lower limbs and escaping the central circulation. This method was found to decrease intrathecal-induced hypotension in cesarean delivery to incidences down to 10% in some studies. We hypothesize that the combination of a pharmacological agent as norepinephrine infusion and a nonpharmacological method as leg wrapping with crepe bandages may help in the prevention of spinal-induced hypotension during Cesarean delivery more than using only one of them.

Who can participate

What they're measuring

Trial details