Epidural analgesia and perinatal retinal haemorrhages.

The incidence and magnitude of retinal haemorrhages in a group of neonates delivered spontaneously (n = 50), whose mothers received epidural analgesia during labour, has been compared to those of a spontaneously delivered control group (n = 50) who received conventional analgesia. The second stage of labour was significantly longer in the epidural group (P less than 0.001), which contained a higher number of primiparas than did their controls. Still, a lower incidence of retinal haemorrhages was noted in the epidural group (P less than 0.01). The study indicates that epidural analgesia offers a certain degree of protection against perinatal retinal haemorrhages in the spontaneously delivered neonate.