Epidural Anesthesia for Caesarean Section and Occurrence of Horner’s Syndrome

Abstract

Recently, specifically in the last decade, at the University Clinic of Gynecology and Obstetrics, the number of patients treated with epidural analgesia for painless childbirth, which in some percentage ends in Caesarian section (35%), has increased. The increased use of the epidural anesthesia and analgesia is due to the fact that it is one of the most popular ways of childbirth today. This situation is a result of the benefits that epidural anesthesia has for the patient, which consist of allowing the pregnant woman to be conscious during childbirth and to feel and see her child coming into the world, accompanied with smaller intensity of intraoperative and postoperative pain. However, the results or the effects in practice have shown that in certain insignificant percentage patients can have negative consequences from the received analgesia (anesthesia) such as: headache, cases of durra puncture, epidural abscess or hematoma, neurological outbursts etc. But, the subject of this analysis or the aim of this study is the appearance of Horner’s syndrome, as one of the negative effects of the epidural anesthesia, which even though rarely (only in 1% of the cases) can appear as a result of the epidural anesthesia. In the case study using the historic, comparative and empirical method we will try through a specific case to determine the causes for the occurrence of the Horner’s syndrome, how it should be treated and what are the consequences for the patient.