Anesthesia and analgesia for caesaren section in dog

Abstract

This work presents a case of a pregnant female dog, of English bulldog breed, three years old, which was brought to Belgrade Faculty of Veterinary Medicine because of inability for normal parturition. Cesarean section is an urgent intervention both in human and in veterinary medicine. Anesthesia of a pregnant dog should be carried out very carefully, because of all the physiological changes that appear during pregnancy, as well as the impact of anesthetics on embryos themselves. Anesthetics, analgesics and sedatives pass through blood brain barrier, but also their transport goes through placenta to embryo, so for that reason it is not possible to anesthetize only mother and to avoid anesthesia effects on the embryo. Therefore, anesthetics with short time of action which metabolize quickly and have minimal negative effect on embryos are recommended. When choosing the right analgesics and anesthetics, there should be known that female dogs in which it is necessary to do Cesarean section belong to the group of high risk patients. Pregnant female dogs are exposed to hypoventilation, hypoxia, hypercapnia, intense heart work, vomiting and regurgitation as well. Reversible anesthetics are recommended to provide shorter duration time of anesthesia, and in accordance, inhalation anesthetics doses are minimal. Application of α2- agonist in premedication, propophol in induction, as well as maintaining general inhalation anesthesia with sevofluran, along with local analgesia, proved to be the ideal combination in this case of cesarean section.

Keywords

• cesarean section
• anesthesia
• analgesia