Evaluation of the effect of pregestational and gestational body mass index on skin puncture pain during spinal anesthesia for elective cesarean operation

Abstract

Objective: Skin puncture pain during spinal anesthesia is the reason of wincing from spinal anesthesia in many patients. In this study we aimed to investigate whether the body mass index in the pregestational and gestational period affects skin puncture pain during spinal anesthesia for cesarean sections.Material-Method: One hundred pregnant scheduled to undergo elective caesarean section under spinal anesthesia, were studied. Spinal anesthesia was induced with hyperbaric bupivacaine 10-15 mg via a 27G Quincke spinal needle in the sitting position at the L3–4 or L4-5 vertebral level using median approaches. Skin puncture pain during spinal anesthesia were assessed on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means no pain and 10 the worst possible pain.Results: There were no correlation between gestational BMI and the skin puncture pain VAS scores was found ( ρ= -0.021, p=0.835). And also no correlation between pre-pregnancy BMI and the skin puncture pain VAS scores was found ( ρ= -0.012, p=0.903). Conclusions: We believe that the pregestational and gestational body mass index does not have any effect on skin puncture pain during spinal anesthesia.