High Spinal

[OBwonKnewbie]

Has anyone had any experience with anesthesia accidentally giving patients a high spinal? Do you have policies in place for what to do besides following ACLS? We had this happen while a patient was getting a spinal for a C/S and it resulted in complete chaos. Many of the nurses panicked because they had never seen this happen before

[Katie71275]

Very rarely, but depending on what is affected, would determine what I would do. If for spinal for c-section, then I have seen anesthesia bag the patient, or put to sleep and intubate. If it was an epidural that resulted in a spinal, again it depends on what is being affected, but in my experience, sitting the patient straight up helps...and DON"T start the epidural pump.

[offlabel]

It'd just be best to have anesthesia direct things, I think. They know what the issues are and they'll likely tell you what, if anything they need.

[ashleyisawesome, BSN, RN]

I had one patient with a high spinal in recovery after a c/s. Anesthesia had me sit her straight up and breathe on her hands so her brain could recognize that she was indeed breathing. He said the problem isn't that the patient can't breathe, it is that she can not feel that she is breathing so her body goes into panic mode. The breathing on the hand thing worked pretty well.

[Postpartum RN]

What is a high spinal?

[Katie71275]

The high spinal is when it goes UP instead of down the abdomen.