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Effects of Obstetric Analgesia—Anesthesia on Neonatal Neurobehavior

  • Chapter
Clinical Management of Mother and Newborn

Abstract

A clear understanding of the effect of drugs on the neonate can be obscured by the concept of the placental “barrier,” by uncritical reliance on the Apgar score, and by unjustified extrapolation from our limited knowledge of pharmacodynamics. Most drugs pass easily from mother to fetus through the placental interchange. The few exceptions include highly ionized drugs such as succinylcholine and curare, and very rapidly destroyed drugs such as chloroprocaine. Analgesics, tranquilizers, and other drugs affecting the central nervous system pass rapidly because the blood-brain interchange possesses the same characteristics as the placental interchange; it allows the free transfer of unionized, lipid soluble, non-protein-bound drugs. In effect, the physiochemical properties of drugs modifying pain and fear at the cerebral level are exactly the properties needed for free passage to the fetus.

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Authors
  1. Robert Hodgkinson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, 10461, Bronx, New York, USA

    Gertie F. Marx M.D.

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© 1979 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Hodgkinson, R. (1979). Effects of Obstetric Analgesia—Anesthesia on Neonatal Neurobehavior. In: Marx, G.F. (eds) Clinical Management of Mother and Newborn. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-6173-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-6173-5_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-6175-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-6173-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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