Maintenance of normal maternal body temperature in the peripartum period is crucially important, as both hypothermia and hyperthermia are associated with adverse outcomes such as surgical site infection, coagulopathy, neonatal neurological dysfunction. Neuraxial blockade interrupts the sympathetic supply to the cutaneous vasculature, as a result, the ability to regulate body temperature is reduced. A concentrated local anesthetic injection at an epidural site is a common method of providing anesthesia for the emergency cesarean section.
However, the effect of this method on body temperature is not clear due to the unique dual sympathetic supply of the cutaneous circulation. In this regard, a recent study published in the journal, Anesthesia , assessed the cutaneous vasomotor tone and body temperature before and after conversion of epidural analgesia for labor to epidural anesthesia for…
