Practice Guidelines for Obstetric Anesthesia: An Updated Report by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Obstetric Anesthesia and the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology

( Anesthesiology 2016;124:270–300) Practice guidelines are systematically developed recommendations that assist the practitioner and patient in making decisions about health care. In October 2014, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Committee on Standards and Practice Parameters, in collaboration with the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology, elected to collect new evidence to determine whether recommendations in the existing practice guidelines continued to be supported by current evidence.