Anesthesia Risks with Late Abortions

During their second trimester, pregnant women have a high risk of perioperative pulmonary aspiration during surgical abortion. Aspiration is caused by an elevation of physiological changes in the fetus, which is characterized by gastroesophageal reflux disease, increased nausea, and vomiting. However, health practitioners advocate endotracheal intubation to expectant mothers receiving anesthesia during their first trimester.
Most health practitioners prefer to intubate pregnant women during surgical abortion. On the contrary, outpatient facilities prefer to administer deep intravenous anesthetic drugs. The reason for the difference in anesthetic options is because patients undergoing abortions at outpatient facilities have not been catered for and that there is no verification showing that there are pregnancy risks with aspiration. Studies show that abortions have little complications and relatively low mortality rates in expectant mothers.
The article reveals that some of the patients did not show symptoms of anesthesia, but some showed signs of sinus tachycardia and chorioamnionitis. During the entire study, outpatients did not exhibit perioperative pulmonary aspiration while under deep anesthetic sedation. The risk of aspiration is directly proportional with the increase in gestational age, which is greatly elevated by endotracheal intubations. There were no cases in patients using IV sedation where obstetrical procedures revealed high risk of aspiration in comparison to intubation.
It is also evident that pregnancy is not a causative factor for perioperative aspiration. In addition, it is not overrepresented in obstetrical women. The belief that intubation protects aspiration is misleading to the public because the highest number of aspirations occur in extubation. In conclusion, deep sedation is a healthy option for pregnant women during surgical abortion as opposed to intubation during the first, second and third trimesters of pregnancy (Neil,