154th Inaugural Fyneface-Ogan Advocates Anaesthesia Clinic, Legislation To Lessen Labour Pain By Otikor Samuel
Worried by the acute pain that pregnant women go through in the course of labour and delivery, a Perioperative Physician, Professor Sotonye Fyneface-Ogan of the Department of Anaesthesiology, Faculty of Clinical Sciences in the College of Health Sciences, has called for the commencement of Anaesthesia Clinic in hospitals to provide care for pregnant women and reduce labour pains in child delivery.
Professor Fyneface-Ogan also called on government at all levels to enact legislation that would guarantee affordability, accessibility and availability of safe and painless labour and childbirth, just as he advocated stringent laws to regulate the involvement of faith healers and ‘prayer contractors’ in the management of the processes leading to childbirth.
Professor Fyneface-Ogan made the call while delivering the 154th Inaugural Lecture entitled, Pain of Childbirth: The Curse, the Relief and the Anaesthesiologist at the Ebitimi Banigo Auditorium on Thursday, October 25, 2018. He stressed the need for professionals to increase awareness on the right of pregnant women to make informed choices on the administration of anaesthesia on them to douse the pains associated with labour and childbirth, especially in developing countries.
“Childbirth, however, fulfilling, is a very painful experience for majority of women. The pain associated with childbirth is believed to have been inherited from the curse incurred by the biblical Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, when Jesus Christ received the vinegar, he exclaimed that ‘it is finished’. That avowal by Jesus marked the end of the curse on childbirth and hence, the beginning of advancements of knowledge in science and technology,” Professor Fyneface-Ogan stated.
The 154th Inaugural Lecturer noted that both vaginal and Caesarean Section methods of delivery caused so much pain to pregnant women, disclosing that pains associated with childbirth amounted to 57 units with 14 nerves in action far more than the 45 units of pains which the average human being could ordinarily bear. He stressed the need for pharmacological forms of pain relief which he said, were now available through medical intervention.
The Inaugural Lecturer condemned the practice in which a woman in labour was beaten by midwives and traditional birth attendants, also bemoaning the act of patronising prayer houses for delivery. Professor Fyneface-Ogan attributed many complications arising from childbirth to the handiwork of non-professionals who usually ended up causing more harm to the female reproductive organs and posing a grave threat to the life of women in labour. He traced the commencement of pain management during childbirth to Eugen Bogdan Aburel, who introduced the repeated administration of injection all through the course of labour, while James Miranda Stuart Barry was the first surgeon to conduct the first recorded successful Caesarean Section in the United Kingdom.
On his contribution to knowledge, the Inaugural Lecturer disclosed that he carried out studies that pointed to a better and more reliable method of identifying the epidural space for the anaesthetist to ascertain the location to administer anaesthesia to douse pain before delivery.
“The study describes the sling-shot technique to identify pressure changes in the syringe during puncture of the ligamentum flavum in identifying the epidural space. Knowledge of the pressure changes might be of help to the anaesthetist who attempts to ascertain the location of the needle tip, using a designed sling-shot epidural syringe,” he explained. He also discussed the outcome of numerous other clinical research endeavours that placed the University on the global map.
Reacting to the Lecture, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ndowa Lale, commended the Inaugural Lecturer for driving research in a medical specialisation that was not well known to many. He also thanked Professor Fyneface-Ogan for mitigating the pains women go through during labour in a society mostly driven by superstitious beliefs.
“I am sure that the Inaugural Lecturer gave us a great lecture today. I must commend Professor Fyneface-Ogan for driving quality research to mitigate the excruciating pain his late mother passed through giving birth to him. I am pleased that he has been embarking on high impact research even in the face of paucity of funds. I am also happy that the Inaugural Lecturer is effectively joggling many roles alongside his core calling as an anaesthetist,” the Vice-Chancellor observed.
Professor Lale announced that the 155th Inaugural Lecture entitled, Man, Rivers and Morphological Transformation: Are we Safe? would be delivered by Professor Joel Umeuduji of the Department of Geography and Environmental Management in the Faculty of Social Sciences on Thursday, November 29, 2018.