Anaesthesia has been shown to contribute disproportionately to maternal mortality in low-resource settings. This figure exceeds 500 per 100,000 live births in Tanzania, where anaesthesia is mainly provided by nonphysician anaesthetists, many of whom are working as independent practitioners in...

Maternal mortality is high in many low- and middle-income countries. Unsafe anaesthesia contributes to this, especially for women requiring Caesarean section. Anaesthesia providers with limited skills and poor resources are often faced with complicated obstetric patients. A new course called...

Obstetric transfers represent a clinical and psychological challenge for the pre-hospital or retrieval clinician. This tutorial covers some basics of transfer decision making using case-based examples of common obstetric scenarios, alongside explanations of common obstetric emergencies.

Intraoperative cell salvage in obstetrics is a safe adjunct or alternative treatment to allogenic blood transfusions during a postpartum hemorrhage. This tutorial will describe how the cell salvage circuit works and review the indications, contraindications, advantages, disadvantages and risks of...

This tutorial summarises various types of myopathies and their physiological effects in pregnancy. It describes the commonly associated obstetric and anaesthetic complications and their management. It is important for anaesthetists to understand different clinical aspects of myopathies in order to...

Non-obstetric surgery during pregnancy is not uncommon and anaesthetists should be aware of the implications for management. The physiological changes of pregnancy need to be considered, especially the avoidance of aortocaval compression, antacid prophylaxis and adequate preoxygenation. The airway needs...

Failed tracheal intubation is more common in the obstetric population despite widespread adoption of failed intubation drills and equipment advances. This tutorial provides a practical approach to safe obstetric airway management and the actions to take when problems arise including...

Background Indicators to evaluate progress towards timely access to safe surgical, anaesthesia, and obstetric (SAO) care were proposed in 2015 by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. These aimed to capture access to surgery, surgical workforce, surgical volume, perioperative mortality...

Background Indicators to evaluate progress towards timely access to safe surgical, anaesthesia, and obstetric (SAO) care were proposed in 2015 by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. Despite being rapidly taken up by practitioners, datapoints from which to derive them...

Accidental Awareness during General Anaesthesia (AAGA) has been demonstrated to be more common in obstetric practice than in any other area of anaesthesia. Factors contributing to this increased risk include maternal stress or anxiety, emergency surgery and the “intravenous-inhalational” interval....