Epidural labour analgesia rates during the COVID‐19 pandemic in the north‐west of England

Abstract

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple national and international societies recommended labour epidural analgesia for patients with confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection [1, 2]. This was suggested primarily to facilitate emergency operative delivery under regional anaesthesia in order to decrease the then unknown associated risks of aerosol-generating procedures associated with general anaesthesia. A recent study by Katz et al. [3] reported that the rates of labour epidural analgesia in patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were lower than those who tested negative. Our previous work across 10 maternity units in the north-west of England reported that the mean epidural labour analgesia rate amongst patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 who had a vaginal birth was 20.4% [4]. In view of the findings of Katz et al. [3], and drawing on our previous data [4], we compared the rates of labour epidural analgesia in patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection by respiratory tract reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction with those who were assumed, or tested, negative across nine hospitals in the north-west of England between