Neonatal neurobehabioral tests following vaginal delivery under ketamine, thiopental, and extradural anesthesia.

Scanlon's neurobehavioral tests were administered to 274 neonates on the 1st and 2nd days of life. Ketamine-N2O anesthesia had been given to 45 mothers, thiopental-N2O to 52, and lumbar extradural anesthesia with chloroprocaine to 177. All babies delivered from mothers receiving meperidine within 5 hours of delivery were excluded. All babies tested were over 2500 grams in weight, apparently normal, and with Apgar scores of at least 8 at 1 minute and 10 at 5 minutes. All were delivered from healthy women aged 18 to 35 years following a normal labor. Lumbar extradural anesthesia was associated with the greatest percentage of high scores on both the 1st and 2nd days for overall assessment, tone, rooting, sucking, Moro's response, placing, alertness, and habituation to pinprick. The scores were lowest after thiopental and intermediate following ketamine. No relationship was found between neurobehavior and low-forceps extraction, oxytocin augmentation, parity, or duration of labor.