How painful is a spinal anaesthetic? | Spinal Cord Anesthesia

How painful is a spinal anaesthetic?

How painful the application of a spinal medullary anaesthesia will be, depends strongly on the experience of the anaesthetist performing it. In addition, the anatomy of the patient plays a major role. Under certain circumstances, unforeseeable difficulties can arise which complicate the procedure and make it more painful.

In most cases, however, patients find spinal cord anaesthesia surprisingly painless. This is due to a local anesthesia performed before the actual puncture, which numbs the skin and its underlying layers. As a result, the actual puncture needle is now only felt as a dull pressure.

Is it possible to give birth under a spinal anaesthetic?

Today, spinal cord anaesthesia is used in a variety of operations and procedures in a wide range of specialties – including obstetrics.Spinal anaesthesia has actually become established as the standard procedure for Caesarean sections, as it can avoid complications of general anaesthesia for both mother and child. Epidural anaesthesia is also used in obstetrics to eliminate pain – but here mainly to enable a painless vaginal delivery. However, it should be borne in mind that the duration of birth under epidural anaesthesia is significantly longer. In addition, epidural anaesthesia requires some time to take effect and is more time-consuming in the system, which is why spinal anaesthesia is usually used for urgent deliveries.