Abdominal nerve blockade for postoperative analgesia after caesarean section.

A prospective study of blocking T10-L1 with local anaesthetic, bilaterally in 30 patients undergoing caesarean section under general anaesthesia has been shown to provide effective postoperative analgesia thus requiring significantly less narcotics (mean 66.6 mg of pethidine) compared to the 30 patients in the control group (mean 163 mg of pethidine). A cocktail of 0.5% of bupivacaine with adrenaline and xylocaine 1% produced analgesia for the duration ranging from 8 to 12 hours (mean 8.4 hours). Patients with abdominal field block were awake, alert and comfortable during the immediate postoperative period. They were pain-free sufficiently to put the babies to the breast early and frequently.