Effective pain management should be a key priority in women undergoing cesarean delivery. Suboptimal perioperative pain management is associated with chronic pain, greater opioid use, delayed functional recovery, impaired maternal-fetal bonding, and increased postpartum depression. Severe acute postoperative pain is also strongly associated with persistent pain after cesarean delivery. Multimodal analgesia is the core principle for cesarean delivery pain management. The use of neuraxial morphine and opioid-sparing adjuncts such as scheduled nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications and acetaminophen is recommended for all women undergoing cesarean delivery with neuraxial anesthesia unless contraindicated. Additional analgesic and opioid-sparing options such as wound instillation of local anesthetics, transversus abdominis plane blocks, dexamethasone, gabapentin, and ketamine may be used as appropriate in women at risk of severe postoperative pain or in women whose postoperative pain is not well controlled despite standard analgesic regimes.
Keywords: cesarean delivery; intrathecal opioids; multimodal analgesia; pain management.
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