Post-cesarean Analgesia: Comparing Effectiveness of Staggered v. Simultaneous Therapies

Cesarean delivery is a commonly performed surgical procedure. The rate of cesarean delivery (CD) is increasing in the US; cesarean accounted for 32% of all births in 2022. Parents who deliver via CD experience more pain than those who have a vaginal birth. Uncontrolled postpartum pain can be associated with an increased risk of physical complications including venous thrombosis, atelectasis, pneumonia as well as increased psychological distress. Poor postpartum pain control can also hinder infant-parental bonding and impact breastfeeding initiation or continuation.

Multiple strategies for post-operative pain management exist including opioid and non-opioid medications. Multimodal non-opioid medications are preferred as first-line therapies due to the short- and long-term risks associated with opioid pain medication. Acetaminophen and ibuprofen are most commonly utilized in the US. A meta-analysis of 21 studies enrolling 1909 post-operative patients examined the efficacy of NSAIDs and parecetamol in combination compared to each drug alone and found a significant reduction in pain intensity for combination therapy compared to each drug alone.

Both acetaminophen and ibuprofen can be given every 6 hours. Practices differ, however, on administering these medications at the same time or in a staggered fashion. To date, there are no trials comparing these different dosing schedules for post-cesarean delivery pain control.

Inclusion criteria

• >/= 34 weeks gestation
• Singleton pregnancy
• Delivery via cesarean section under regional anesthesia

Exclusion criteria

• Contraindication to acetaminophen or NSAIDs
• Current or history of opioid use or misuse
• Intrauterine fetal demise
• Major congenital anomaly
• Conversion to general anesthesia intra-op or planned general anesthesia
• Mid-line vertical skin incision
• Receipt of intraoperative local analgesia such as Transversus Abdominis Plan (TAP) block or wound infiltration