The Sedative Dose of Midazolam in Pregnant Women during Epidural Anesthesia for Cesarean Section

Yeom, Jong Hoon; Shin, Woo Jong; Kim, Hee Soo; Kim, Yong Chul; Lee, Dong Ho

Abstract

BACKGROUND
S: This study was investigated for assessing of the sedative dose of midazolam and its influence on neonatal Apgar score that intravenously injected immediately before operation during epidural anesthesia for cesarean section.
METHODS
Midazolam, 1 mg, was given into a freely running IV line every 30s 2 min after 2 mg of midazolam was initiately injected. Ten seconds prior to each injection patients were asked to open the eye. No response, as determined by the anesthesiologists, to three promptly repeated and increasingly louder commands was considered the end-point for the study and no further midazolam was given.
RESULTS
The sedative dose of midazolam in our study was 3.3 1.1 mg and interindividual variation (range: 2~7 mg) were wide. Respiratory depression was occurred in one of pregnant women with midazolam. All of the Apgar scores of the newborn infants at 1 and 5 min in both groups were higher than seven.
CONCLUSIONS
When the intravenous injection of midazolam for sedation immediately before operation is required in pregnant women during epidural anesthesia for cesarean section, we would like to suggest that one should initiately administer the small dose and then inject the incremental dose with careful observation of the respiratory status.