Conditions: Postoperative Pain
Keywords: Cesarean delivery Analgesia Pain Dexamethasone intrathecal morphine spinal anesthesia
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 52
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness intravenous (IV) dexamethasone when used as part of a multimodal regimen to manage post cesarean delivery pain.

We hypothesize that a single dose of IV dexamethasone administered, as part of a multimodal analgesia after spinal anesthesia will significantly reduce post cesarean delivery opioid consumption and pain

Detailed description:
After the subjects consent to participate in the study they will be transferred to the operating room for their scheduled cesarean delivery. They will have their routine spinal anesthesia with the dosages of drugs used standardized, and a standardized regimen to manage hypotension. After delivery of the baby the subjects will be administered either the study drug or placebo depending on the randomization. The subjects will then be prescribed a standard post-operative analgesia regimen. The subjects will then be interviewed at 12,24 and 48 hours post cesarean delivery. During the interview the subjects will be asked to rate their pain, nausea and vomiting and pruritus. They will also be asked to rate their quality of recovery from the surgery using Quality of Recovery-40 questionnaire. The subjects will be contacted 6 months after the study to rate their pain using a Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire

Arms:
arm 1: intrathecal morphine administered at time of spinal anesthesia. After cesarean delivery 8mg (2ml) of Dexamethasone given intraoperatively arm 2: intrathecal morphine administered at time of spinal anesthesia. After cesarean delivery 2ml of placebo (Normal saline) drawn to mimic active drug given intraoperatively

Interventions: intervention 1: Dexamethasone intervention 2: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None intervention 2: None

Protocol document: