Anesthesia safe for delivering women
October 21, 2008 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Women's Health
If you ask people what their biggest fear of surgery is, some will answer, dying during surgery from the anesthetic.
While there are always risks with general anesthetics, the types used these days are very safe and rarely cause any severe issues, including death. Unfortunately, the fear of death can affect women who are undergoing medically necessary Cesarean sections (C-sections), which adds to the stress and anxiety of the moment. Luckily, research has shown that death among pregnant women undergoing general anesthetic for C-sections is very rare. According to study data presented in Florida during the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the risk of death is only one in one million. Obviously, the doctors would like to see this never happen, but odds of one in one million are really quite good.
Hopefully, news like this will ease your mind a bit if you do have to have a general anesthetic for that C-section.
~~~~
Tags: pregnancy blog, c section, cesarean section, anesthetic, anesthetic deaths
