Can a caesarean section be performed under general anesthesia?

After a woman has been pregnant for 10 months, the last step is childbirth. There are two ways of childbirth: natural childbirth and caesarean section. Natural childbirth is relatively simple, but the pain is very unbearable, so the fetus needs to be in a normal fetal position for normal delivery. Caesarean section is a method of delivery equivalent to surgery, so it requires a day of injection of anesthesia. Can I have a caesarean section with general anesthesia?

General anesthesia for cesarean section

The general anesthesia method used in cesarean section, referred to as "general anesthesia", refers to the anesthetic entering the body through inhalation or intravenous administration, inhibiting the central nervous system and causing the mother to lose consciousness. During the entire operation, the mother loses consciousness and does not feel any pain. She does not need to worry or be afraid. She has the advantage of "waking up after the operation". The mother will only wake up when all the anesthetics are metabolized, but she will feel pain immediately after waking up. This is what we often call general anesthesia: "pleasure first, pain later."

Since general anesthesia involves injecting anesthetic drugs intravenously, these drugs can enter the fetus through the placental blood flow. That is, the fetus is anesthetized while the mother is asleep. Although the amount of drugs used is small, a small number of newborns still require tracheal intubation after birth because of poor breathing. In addition, mothers who receive general anesthesia lose certain protective mechanisms after taking anesthetic drugs. At this time, if the mother vomits, the vomitus may be inhaled into the lungs and cause aspiration pneumonia, resulting in inability to ventilate the lungs properly. Therefore, general anesthesia is very risky for both the mother and the fetus. Therefore, the mother should try to avoid using this method of anesthesia. However, although general anesthesia has risks, the incidence of danger has become lower and lower with the improvement of anesthesia level.

Partial anesthesia for cesarean section

The three types of anesthesia, epidural anesthesia, spinal anesthesia, and combined spinal-epidural anesthesia, are collectively referred to as spinal anesthesia, commonly known as "semi-anesthesia". Partial anesthesia can numb the abdomen and lower limbs of the mother during the operation, making her feel no pain, but at the same time, her mind can remain clear. In this case, the mother can still participate in the delivery process, hear the baby's cry for the first time, and see the baby for the first time after the baby is born, which is conducive to building parent-child relationships. However, since the anesthetic needle needs to pass through the intervertebral space, it may cause ligament damage and cause short-term low back discomfort after delivery, but it will generally heal after rest.

Local infiltration anesthesia is the simplest and most direct anesthesia technique. The anesthetic effect is far inferior to the various methods mentioned above. Its indications are limited. This type of anesthesia will only be used to complete a cesarean section when fetal distress occurs and the anesthesiologist is not on site, or when the fetal distress is severe and delivery is urgent, or when the mother has both difficult airway and contraindications to spinal anesthesia.

The current mainstream academic view is that spinal anesthesia is safer for cesarean section. General anesthesia has various unsafe factors, so anesthesiologists generally prefer spinal anesthesia, which is partial anesthesia.