Linus Oota, Lafia

Dr Joseph Adagazu is an anesthesiologist from Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH) Lafia, Nasarawa state. He spoke exclusively to our correspondent in Lafia after conducting the first painless labour procedure on a pregnant woman (Mrs Nathan Ekwo) who delivers successfully in a painless process.

 

You just introduce a painless labour procedure known as epidural labour injection. How does it work and how effective is it.

Yes, It is a method of delivery which is called Labour epidural anesthesia and we usually apply it at the west of the woman to block all the pains that accompany with labour and the woman will go through all her labour without any single pain and some of them can lay down browsing on their handset or reading newspaper while their labour progresses to avoid any pain on them.

It is procedure that has made labour easier and will reduce mortality rate, is less painful for women and has also reduce the rate of cesarean situations. The procedure is known as the epidural labour injection to the pelvic region to reduce the labour pains while the labour proceeds accordingly.

We usually do this because most times women die of so many illnesses after child birth because they are undiagnosed, some are suffering from asthmatics, sickle cell diseases patients, cardiac pathology which they became pregnant in the process and there is nothing they can do than to deliver the child and with this, they can pass through their delivery process without any complications arising from their sickness, and it reduces the high rate mortality during delivery.

From your explanation, most women who die shortly after given birth does so because of complication arising from going through labour, what them is your advice to pregnant women

Women who have heart respiratory diseases and other life threatening illness can be benefit from this procedure too and my advice is that, any woman who has been diagnose to have any heart disease, whether it is hypertensive, or she has a hole in the heart or any diseases related to the heart should ask the doctor for labour epidural anesthesia during child birth, it helps to reduce the stress that she will pass through labour and of course reduce mortality rates and most women with sickle cell disease should always ask for this type of delivery method.

Related News

Those pregnant women with asthma should not go into labour because the pains of undergoing labour developed a lot of complications as a result of the pains and stressful nature of labour.

There are a lot of women who have undiagnosed medical illness because they didn’t know they are suffering from such, such women normally die shortly after child birth and their relations keep wondering what could have led to the death after child birth. So pregnant women should always request for labour epidural anesthesia since we have started doing it here in DASH, and the benefits are more than the pains you pass through during child birth, a woman should not pass through pains because she want to give birth to a child after carrying the pregnancy for nine months, pregnant women should get a painless epidural services that will help them deliver without undergoing any pain.

 

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) DASH was impressed when that process was carried out here for the first time in the history of the hospital by you and he promised that the hospital will key into it. What is the financial implication of the process?

The CMD is one that understands the terrain of this environment, of course he grew up here and he knows the people, and I’m very sure he knows what to do to ameliorate the cost implication of this labor services to women. The cost is not all that expensive as speculated but I can assure you that people with low income can afford it. The CMD is in support of it and he has been talking with me to see how everybody who desires the process during child birth can afford the cost.

 

Does the process have negative implication on the health status of the patient?

I can assure you that this process is very safe; it is very safe for pregnant women in that we don’t apply it in such a way that it will affect the inner system of the woman, we just stop at the epidural space and put the drug there. She is going to be stabilise and she will still be normal, but women who are bleeding while in labour should not go through this process because it may bring the blood pressure down and it may affect the baby. But on a general note, the process is very safe. This process is not common in the northern part of the country as only few doctors specialise in it.