Abstract

The research project is a comparison study of term newborn breastfeeding infants delivered vaginally to mothers who receive no pain medication and those receiving continuous infusions of bupivacaine and fentanyl given through an epidural catheter, for labor analgesia. The overall premise of the study is that in-utero fetal exposure to maternal epidural-administered narcotics affects central nervous system functioning in the newborn post-birth. Although the effects are subtle, they may be sufficient to disrupt behaviors necessary for the infant to establish effective breastfeeding in the first day post-birth.

It has been reported clinically that there is a higher incidence of breastfeeding disorders observed in breastfed infants born to mothers who labor under epidural analgesia, but this relationship has never been directly investigated. The purpose of this study therefore, was to determine whether there is a difference in breastfeeding behavior between infants born to mothers who receive no pain medication during labor and those who receive continuous infusions of narcotics (fentanyl) in combination with local anesthetics (bupivacaine), through an epidural catheter, for analgesia.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3010697; ProQuest document ID: 252173917. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Sharon Gides Radzyminski, PhD, JD, CNS, RN

Sigma Membership

Phi Omicron

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Other

Research Approach

Other

Keywords:

Epidural Catheters, Newborn Postbirth Functioning, In-Utero Fetal Narcotics Exposure, Infant Breastfeeding Behaviors

Advisor

Clair Andrews

Second Advisor

McCallum Hoyt

Third Advisor

Theresa Standing

Fourth Advisor

Donna Dowling

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

Case Western Reserve University

Degree Year

2001

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2022-04-11

Full Text of Presentation

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