Papers of the Week

Achieving functional recovery after cesarean delivery is critical to a parturient's ability to care for herself and her newborn. Adequate pain control is vital, and without it, many other aspects of the recovery process may be delayed. Reducing opioid consumption without compromising analgesia is of paramount importance, and enhanced recovery pathways have generated considerable interest given their ability to facilitate this. Our group's process for reducing opioid consumption for cesarean delivery patients evolved over time. We first demonstrated that providing additional incisional pain control with continuous bupivacaine infusions through wound catheters, with the concurrent use of neuraxial morphine, reduced postoperative opioid use. Iterations of an enhanced recovery after cesarean (ERAC) delivery pathway were then implemented after the consensus statement for ERAC was issued to eliminate variability in both hospital course and in the treatment of postoperative pain. In this retrospective cohort analysis, we sought to identify whether adding ERAC protocols to our existing combination of neuraxial morphine and wound soaker catheters further reduced opioid consumption after cesarean delivery.