Enhanced recovery after surgery is a concept initially developed for patients undergoing colorectal surgery but has been adopted by other surgical specialties with similar positive outcomes. The adoption of enhanced recovery after surgery in the obstetric patient population is rapidly gaining popularity. This review highlights perioperative interventions that should be considered in an enhanced recovery after surgery protocol for women undergoing cesarean delivery.

Local anaesthetic wound infiltration reduces postoperative opioid consumption but had minimal effect on pain scores and did not reduce opioid-related side-effects in women who had undergone delivery by caesarean section. The review is limited by a paucity of studies using intrathecal morphine and by the indirect comparisons performed for subgroup analyses.

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