We are pleased to announce the publication in Anaesthesia, of the Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association and Difficult Airway Society guidelines for the management of difficult and failed tracheal intubation in obstetrics.
Managing the obstetric difficult airway requires unique consideration and skills. Anatomical and physiological changes in pregnancy exacerbate the problem and surgery is often performed with extreme urgency to ensure the wellbeing of a different individual to the patient.
In 2012 the OAA and DAS committees set up a working group to develop national guidelines on the management of difficult airway in obstetrics in the UK. Following extensive work, a detailed literature review has now been published in IJOA, and the obstetric difficult airway guidelines paper and algorithms have been published in Anaesthesia.
At a time of declining numbers and experience in obstetric general anaesthesia, it is hoped that the publication of these national guidelines will improve consistency of clinical practice, reduce adverse events and provide a structure for teaching and training on failed tracheal intubation in obstetrics.
Presented below are the algorithms and important links to various resources including the original article in Anaesthesia (open access). You can swipe with your mouse or finger (on touch screen devices) to views the next images. Please also see the links below for
The DAS app will also be update with the new guidelines soon.
To view the next images just use finger or mouse to swipe through them. Viewing from smartphone? Try turning your phone on its side(landscape mode).
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Downloads and links
Download Guideline algorithm as pdf file
Download Guideline algorithm as power point file
Anaesthesia journal article launching obstetric airway guidelines 2015 (open access)
Anaesthesia journal editorial accompanying launch of guidelines
The guidelines and further resources can also be found in OAA website at the link below
Obstetric Anaesthetists' Association
The DAS algorithms can be reproduced for non-commercial purposes without explicit request for permission as long as there is proper citation. For more information click here
