Epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine reduces maternal fever during labor: a randomized controlled…

Randomized trialFrontiers in pharmacology· 2026

Epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine reduces maternal fever during labor: a randomized controlled trial.

Yufei Zhang, Di Yu, Bei Shen … Chunli Xu

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Regional AnesthesiaRandomized trialTreatmentQ1IF 5.1

Adding lidocaine to epidural analgesia lowered the rate of intrapartum fever.

Epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine reduces maternal fever during labor: a randomized controlled trial.

Yufei Zhang … Chunli Xu

Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026

Background

The co-administration of neuraxial drugs can enhance analgesic effects and reduce adverse events associated with epidural labor analgesia.

Purpose

This study aimed to explore the effects of epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine on maternal intrapartum fever.

Methods

The control group received epidural analgesia with 0.1% ropivacaine and fentanyl 2 μg/mL, while Group L received epidural analgesia with 0.3% lidocaine, 0.1% ropivacaine, and fentanyl 2 μg/mL.

n = 400 women

Results

Fever during labor occurred in 3.8% with added lidocaine vs 9.2% without.

OR 0.38 (95% CI 0.15 to 0.95)

CI excludes the null - significant

More results

Ultimately, 184 were assigned to the control group (n = 184), and 186 were assigned to Group L (n = 186).

The visual analog scale scores 4 h after analgesia were lower in Group L than in the control group ( P < 0.05).

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Conclusion

Epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine reduced the incidence of intrapartum fever and accelerated the onset of analgesia without increasing maternal or neonatal complications.

Epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine reduces maternal fever during labor: a randomized controlled trial.

Epidural analgesia supplemented with lidocaine reduces maternal fever during labor: a randomized controlled trial.

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