Discomfort after Outpatient Abortion Using Paracervical Block: A Comparison between Two Opioids and One Non-Opioid Drug for Premedication

Abstract

One hundred and one patients undergoing outpatient abortion using local anesthesia were randomly allocated to one of three different premedications: morphine-scopolamine, pethidine or midazolam. The incidence of pain, anxiety, emetic (nausea-vomiting) and patient cooperation was analyzed. Discomfort was frequently noticed, 79 patients reported pain, 57 nausea and 26 vomited at least once during the postoperative period which lasted 2.6 h (mean value). There were no major differences in complaints among the different premedication groups. Nausea, though, was correlated to pain. Symptoms of pain, nausea and vomiting were frequent after abortion under paracervical block. These complaints were not found to be related to the type of premedication or other circumstances in the perioperative period.

Effects of prostaglandin treatment and paracervical blockade on postoperative pain in patients undergoing first trimester abortion in general anesthesia

“…Little attention has, however, been paid to postoperative analgesia. Both the technique and dose of local anesthetic used is of importance for the intraoperative effectiveness of PCB (6). It is also possible that the duration was short due to the lack of vasoconstrictive agent not permitting significant postoperative effects.…”