Correspondence | 839
Ambient operating room temperature: mother, baby or surgeon? P. Sultan1,*, A. S. Habib2, and B. Carvalho3 1
Department of Anaesthesia, University College London Hospital, London, UK, 2Department of Anesthesia, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA and 3Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA *E-mail:
[email protected]
Editor—We thank Siedentopf1 for raising an important point regarding ambient operating theatre temperature and its potential influence upon maternal and neonatal hypothermia during and after Caesarean delivery. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a delivery room temperature of 25–28 C to reduce the incidence of neonatal hypothermia.2 These guidelines do not, however, specifically recommend ideal operating theatre ambient temperatures nor the optimal temperature required to prevent maternal hypothermia. A recently published study by Duryea and colleagues3 specifically explored the impact of operating theatre temperature on maternal and neonatal outcomes. The authors performed a cluster randomization schedule to either 20 C (standard operating room ambient temperature) or 23 C (maximum ambient temperature allowed by hospital policy). Results from 791 mothers (and 825 neonates) undergoing elective or emergency Caesarean delivery under either regional or general anaesthesia demonstrated a significantly lower incidence of mild (
