[Obstetric Anesthesia During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic - a Brief Overview of Published Recommendations for Action by National and International Specialist Societies and Committees].

The most common human corona viruses cause common colds. But three of these viruses cause more serious, acute diseases; Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS by MERS-CoV), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) by SARS-CoV and COVID-19 by SARS-CoV-2. The current outbreak was classified by the WHO as a "global public health emergency". Despite all efforts to reduce the surgical lists and to cancel or postpone non-time-critical surgical interventions, some surgical and anesthetic interventions outside of intensive care medicine are still necessary and must be performed. This is particularly true for obstetric interventions and neuraxial labor analgesia. Workload in the delivery room is presumably not going to decrease and planned cesarean sections cannot be postponed. In the meantime, the clinical course and outcome of some COVID-19 patients with an existing pregnancy or peripartum courses have been reported. There are already numerous recommendations from national and international bodies regarding the care of such patients. Some of these recommendations will be summarized in this manuscript. The selection of aspects should by no means be seen as a form of prioritization. The general treatment principles in dealing with COVID-19 patients and the recommendations for action in intensive care therapy also apply to pregnant and postpartum patients. In this respect, there are naturally considerable redundancies and only a few aspects apply strictly or exclusively to the cohort of obstetric patients. In summary, at present it must be stated that the general care recommendations that also apply to non-COVID-19 patients are initially valid with regard to obstetric anesthesia. Nevertheless, the special requirements on the part of hygiene and infection protection result in special circumstances that should be taken into account when caring for pregnant patients from an anesthetic point of view. These relate to both medical aspects, but also to a particular extent logistics issues with regard to spatial separation, staffing and material resources.