SPECIFIC CONDITIONS FOR WHICH CRITICAL CARE MAY BE REQUIRED

SPECIFIC CONDITIONS FOR WHICH CRITICAL CARE MAY BE REQUIRED Reviews of severe acute maternal morbidity (1-11,15,18,33-47) suggest the following conditions are of most concern: hemorrhage, eclampsia, cardiac arrest, pulmonary edema, respiratory failure, renal failure, sepsis, shock (multiple types), cerebrovascular event, coma, anesthetic complications (e.g., aspiration, difficult/failed intubation), and other cardiac conditions. Most obstetricians will be familiar with hemorrhage, preeclampsia, and eclampsia-in fact, more familiar than most intensivists-and these conditions may be handled on a labor and delivery unit without transfer. The remainder of the chapter will address critical care topics with which the obstetrician is likely to be less familiar. With the understanding that critical care medicine, like any other branch of medicine, is constantly evolving, some current evidence-based practice in critical care is described below.