Purpose

The prevalence of perineal lacerations is more than 75% of all vaginal deliveries. The repair of such lacerations in the institution is usually done using lidocaine for non-epiduralized patients versus no local injection in patients with a pre-existing epidural analgesia. The prevalence of epidural analgesia use among women who underwent vaginal delivery in cross-sectional study of over 2 million deliveries in the United States was 71.1%. Once the analgesic effect of the epidural analgesia fades, the laceration may cause uncontrolled postpartum pain which can affect both the physical and mental recovery period, extend hospital stays, and increase the potential for serious adverse reactions with pain medications. The research hypothesis of this study is that adding a locally injected analgesic, which will take effect once the epidural analgesia fades, may alleviate perineal pain and improve women's overall well-being and satisfaction. This is a superiority two-arm, quadruple-blinded, prospective randomized controlled trial with the objective to determine if prolonged analgesia and higher rate of maternal satisfaction are found when bupivacaine with epinephrine infiltration is used for perineal repair as compared to sham injection in patients with pre-existing effective epidural analgesia at time of perineal laceration repair. Women with a working epidural analgesia, and status post a vaginal delivery involving a second-degree laceration will be invited to participate. Women in the local anesthesia (LA) arm will get a LA injected to the laceration and women in the sham arm will get an injection with saline. The differences in perineal pain between the groups will be evaluated at time of the first analgesic (TFA) demand, maternal satisfaction at 24 hours, and visual analog scale (VAS) pain score.

Condition

Eligibility

Eligible Ages
Over 18 Years
Eligible Genders
Female
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Inclusion Criteria

  • >= 18 years old - Healthy with a singleton pregnancy - English or Spanish speaking - Ongoing functioning epidural throughout the laceration repair - Ability to consent for themselves

Exclusion Criteria

  • Women who underwent an operative vaginal delivery and whose vaginal delivery was complicated by a postpartum hemorrhage - Multiple gestation - Complaints of non-functional epidural - Allergic to bupivacaine and/or epinephrine - Epidural was a combined spinal-epidural (CSE) - Received an epidural top-off (bolus of local anesthetic injected into the epidural catheter) < 3 hours from the perineal repair - Experienced extreme pain at time of study consent (pain scale score > 3 on 0-10 scale)

Study Design

Phase
Phase 4
Study Type
Interventional
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention Model
Parallel Assignment
Primary Purpose
Treatment
Masking
Quadruple (Participant, Care Provider, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Masking Description
Randomization will be blinded to the patient, the nurse carrying for the patient and providing the randomized, unlabeled syringe, the provider performing the perineal repair, the research team asking the maternal satisfaction questions, and the researcher analyzing the data. To assure blinding, the selection of the medication given, and the preparation of such medication will be performed by the labor and delivery anesthesia team. No one involved directly in the perineal laceration repair, or obtaining research information, nor the patient, will know what was injected.

Arm Groups

ArmDescriptionAssigned Intervention
Experimental
Local Anesthesia arm
Bupivicaine and Epinephrine
  • Drug: Bupivacaine
    10 milliliters (ml) of bupivacaine 0.50% injected to the vaginal laceration site.
  • Drug: Epinephrine
    Epinephrine (1:200,000) injected to the vaginal laceration site.
Sham Comparator
Normal saline sham arm
  • Other: Sham normal saline arm
    10 milliliter (ml) of normal saline injected to the vaginal laceration site.

Recruiting Locations

Montefiore Medical Center
Bronx, New York 10467
Contact:
Clarissa P Diniz, MD
718-904-2767
cdiniz@montefiore.org

More Details

NCT ID
NCT05972681
Status
Recruiting
Sponsor
Montefiore Medical Center

Study Contact

Clarissa P Diniz, MD
718-904-2767
cdiniz@montefiore.org

Notice

Study information shown on this site is derived from ClinicalTrials.gov (a public registry operated by the National Institutes of Health). The listing of studies provided is not certain to be all studies for which you might be eligible. Furthermore, study eligibility requirements can be difficult to understand and may change over time, so it is wise to speak with your medical care provider and individual research study teams when making decisions related to participation.