Acute pain and analgesic requirement after vaginal childbirth with and without neuraxial labor analgesia-Retrospective cohort study.

Abstract

BackgroundFew data are available on the intensity of pain that women experience during the first five days after vaginal childbirth. Moreover, it is unknown if the use of neuraxial labor analgesia has any impact on the level of postpartum pain.MethodsWe performed a retrospective cohort study based on chart review of all women who delivered vaginally at an urban teaching hospital between April 2017 and April 2019. The primary outcome was the area under the curve of pain score on numeric rating scale (NRS) documented in electronic medical records for five days postpartum (NRS-AUC5days). Secondary outcomes included peak NRS score, doses of oral and intravenous analgesics consumed during the first five days postpartum, and relevant obstetric outcomes. Logistic regression was used to examine the associations between the use of neuraxial labor analgesia and pain-related outcomes adjusting for potential confounders.ResultsDuring the study period, 778 women (38.6%) underwent vaginal delivery with neuraxial analgesia and 1240 women (61.4%) delivered without neuraxial analgesia. Median (Interquartile range) of NRS-AUC5days was 0.17 (0.12-0.24) among women who received neuraxial analgesia and 0.13 (0.08-0.19) among women who did not (pConclusionAlthough women who used neuraxial labor analgesia had slightly higher pain scores and increased analgesic requirement during postpartum hospitalization, pain after vaginal childbirth was overall mild. The small elevation in the pain burden in neuraxial group does not seem to be clinically relevant and should not influence women's choice to receive labor analgesia.