Spinal anaesthesia

Backflow of cerebrospinal fluid through a 25 gauge spinal needle after puncture of the arachnoid mater during initiation of spinal anaesthesia

Form of neuraxial regional anaesthesia involving the injection of a local anaesthetic or opioid into the subarachnoid space, generally through a fine needle, usually 9 cm long.

- Spinal anaesthesia

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Caesarean section

Surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or mother at risk.

A 7-week-old caesarean section scar and linea nigra visible on a 31-year-old mother: Longitudinal incisions are still sometimes used.

Transvaginal ultrasonography of a uterus years after a caesarean section, showing the characteristic scar formation in its anterior part

Closed incision for low transverse abdominal incision after stapling has been completed

Illustration depicting caesarean section

A baby being removed from its dying mother's womb

A caesarean section performed by indigenous healers in Kahura, Uganda. As observed by medical missionary Robert William Felkin in 1879.

Saint Caesarius of Terracina, invoked for the success of caesarean delivery

Fictional 15th-century depiction of the birth of Julius Caesar

It may be done with a spinal block, where the woman is awake, or under general anesthesia.

Intrathecal administration is a route of administration for drugs via an injection into the spinal canal, or into the subarachnoid space so that it reaches the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and is useful in spinal anesthesia, chemotherapy, or pain management applications.

Hypotension

Low blood pressure.

Many anesthetic agents and techniques, including spinal anesthesia and most inhalational agents, produce significant vasodilation.

Fentanyl

Powerful opioid used as a pain medication and, together with other medications, for anesthesia.

A fentanyl nasal spray with a strength of 100 μg per use

A fentanyl transdermal patch with a release rate of 12 micrograms per hour, on a person's arm

US yearly overdose deaths, and some of the drugs involved. Among the more than 70,200 deaths estimated in 2017, the sharpest increase occurred among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (other ) with over 28,400 overdose deaths.

US yearly deaths involving other, predominantly fentanyl.

A package of 30 tablets, 600 mcg of fentanyl, each

Fentanyl powder (23% fentanyl) seized by a sheriff

Fentanyl is sometimes given intrathecally as part of spinal anesthesia or epidurally for epidural anaesthesia and analgesia.

Surgery

Medical or dental specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pathological condition such as a disease or injury, to help improve bodily function, appearance, or to repair unwanted ruptured areas.

Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian surgical treatise

Sushruta, the author of Sushruta Samhita, one of the oldest texts on surgery

Hippocrates stated in the oath (c. 400 BC) that general physicians must never practice surgery and that surgical procedures are to be conducted by specialists

Ambroise Paré (c. 1510–1590), father of modern military surgery.

12th century medieval eye surgery in Italy

Joseph Lister, pioneer of antiseptic surgery

Hieronymus Fabricius, Operationes chirurgicae, 1685

John Syng Dorsey wrote the first American textbook on surgery

An operation in 1753, painted by Gaspare Traversi.

Spinal anesthesia may be used when the surgical site is too large or deep for a local block, but general anesthesia may not be desirable.

Cocaine

Tropane alkaloid and stimulant drug obtained primarily from the leaves of two coca species native to South America, Erythroxylum coca and Erythroxylum novogranatense.