Obstetric Anaesthesia annual meeting in Belfast

Hot topics discussed were life-threatening peripartal bleeding followed by rich discussion of the shift in approach and its frequent changes, from full blood, erythrocyte concentrate to targeted hemosubstitution by bedside tests.

The Friday program, in addition to the presentation of posters and oral presentations, has brought in recent years often discussed obstetric analgesia with PCA remifentanil where, despite a strenuous attitude toward removing remifentanil from one of the main speaker's, the audience with majority of those present voted for use of remifentanil at childbirth in compliance with basic safety precautions such as 1: 1 care, clinical monitoring...

The greatest surprise was a well-done lecture by Mike Kinsella "Lateral thinking by obstetric anesthetists". Dr. Kinsella summarizes the development of lateral dislocation of the uterus from an incredible 1933 to the present. Despite such a long history of clear evidence of the benefit of prevention of compression of the inferior vena cava in pregnant women and prevention of hypotension, this simple approach is often neglected, apparently not only in the Czech Republic but also in the UK. The most alarming estimate of the dgree of tilt, which dr. Kinsella pointed to the tilting of the famous tower in Pisa, and an estimate of its tilt by all the medical staff in the obstetric department.

After a meeting of members of the Obstetric Anesthetists Association (OAA) took place the ceremony with awarding the best presentations of the Congress. Afterwards, the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia, the official OAA magazine, prof. Michael Peach, who reviewed the best work imprinted in this prestigious magazine in 2017.

The winning work in the strong competition became the work of dr. Martina Kosinova, a member of the management of AKUTNE.CZ portal, concerning the influence of neonatal postpartum adaptation by the choice of muscle relaxants.

The award was taken over by Martin Kosinová and Petr Štourač, part of the awarded team of the RocSugIO study, which preceded the awarded work. This is the exceptional success of the Czech anesthesiology school, and thanks to the Czech Society of Anaesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Medicine, which supported the study.