Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Sep 13;36(1):30-33.
doi: 10.1080/08998280.2022.2121106. eCollection 2023.

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial disparities in neuraxial labor analgesia at a Texas level IV maternal care center

Abigail Torres  1 , Luis Ruiz  2 , Logan Jepson  3 , Megan Howell  4 , Alexandra Carlson  1 , Joanna Stacey  2 , Kendall Hammonds  5 , Michael P Hofkamp  6
Affiliations

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial disparities in neuraxial labor analgesia at a Texas level IV maternal care center

Abigail Torres et al. Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). .

Abstract

We hypothesized that racial disparities in labor epidural analgesia at our hospital that existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic would be exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined patients who delivered vaginally at our hospital for the last 6 months of 2019 and the last 6 months of 2020. We performed joint testing of coefficient P values, and the interaction term between race and year of delivery was not significant (0.364). A multivariate logistic regression model found that Hispanic patients (odds ratio 0.555 [0.408, 0.756], P < 0.001) and Black or African American patients (odds ratio 0.613 [0.408, 0.921], P = 0.018) were less likely to receive labor epidural analgesia compared to White or Caucasian patients. Odds ratios of receiving labor epidural analgesia were higher with increasing gestational age (1.116 [1.067, 1.168], P < 0.001) and lower with increasing parity (0.789 [0.719, 0.867], P < 0.001). The year of birth that corresponded to before or during the COVID-19 pandemic did not predict whether a patient received labor epidural analgesia (1.247 [0.941, 1.652], P = 0.124). Because the interaction between race and year of birth was not statistically significant, we conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic did not exacerbate racial disparities in labor epidural analgesia at our hospital.

Keywords: COVID-19; epidural analgesia; pregnancy.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. ACOG practice bulletin no. 209 summary: obstetric analgesia and anesthesia. Obstet Gynecol. 2019;133:595–597. doi:10.1097/AOG.0000000000003133. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Practice guidelines for obstetric anesthesia: an updated report by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Obstetric Anesthesia and the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology. Anesthesiology. 2016;124:270–300. doi:10.1097/ALN.0000000000000935. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lange EMS, Rao S, Toledo P.. Racial and ethnic disparities in obstetric anesthesia. Semin Perinatol. 2017;41(5):293–298. doi:10.1053/j.semperi.2017.04.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Pineles BL, Alamo IC, Farooq N, et al. . Racial-ethnic disparities and pregnancy outcomes in SARS-CoV-2 infection in a universally-tested cohort in Houston, Texas. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2020;254:329–330. doi:10.1016/j.ejogrb.2020.09.012. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tangel VE, Matthews KC, Abramovitz SE, White RS.. Racial and ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity and anesthetic techniques for obstetric deliveries: a multi-state analysis, 2007–2014. J Clin Anesth. 2020;65:109821. doi:10.1016/j.jclinane.2020.109821. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources