Anesthesia for Pregnant Patient with Psychiatric Disorders

The increasing number of women with perinatal mental illness has been requiring obstetric anesthesia care. These disorders include mood, anxiety, psychotic, substance use, eating, and personality disorders. Preoperative evaluation of the patients with known or suspected psychiatric disease should be adjusted according to the type and severity of the mental disorder. The patients with stable mental status should be encouraged to have regional anesthesia due to well-known benefits of techniques during obstetric anesthesia. Yet, the choice of anesthetic technique should actively be depended on the mental status of the patient, and postoperative care should be attentively managed regarding pain relief and continuation of medical therapy for the psychiatric disease. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize perinatal psychiatric illnesses and to detail their implications on obstetric anesthesia regarding the main issues mentioned above.