Obstetrics departments are unique and medical accidents in obstetric anesthesia may show differences from non-obstetric anesthesia accidents. So we compared both groups in several aspects for the understanding their characters and decreasing their incidence.

Obstetric anesthesia accidents (n = 30) and non-obstetric anesthesia accidents (n = 106) were compared in 6 categories (patient age, anesthesia method, damaging event, anesthetic care, severity of injury, payment).

The most common complications in obstetric anesthesia accidents were maternal death (40%), maternal brain damage (13%), and maternal nerve injury (13%). In contrast, the most common complications in non-obstetric anesthesia accidents were patient death (62%), and patient brain damage (27%). The severity of injury score of obstetric anesthesia adverse outcomes was analogous to that of non-obstetric anesthesia adverse outcomes, but the payment for obstetric accidents was significantly greater than that for non-obstetric accidents.

Obstetric anesthesia accidents revealed distinct medical risk profiles, such as patient age, damaging event, severity of injury, and payment. Special care should be used when anesthetizing younger women and caring for a newborn in obstetric anesthesia. More studies and analyses are necessary to prevent obstetric anesthesia accidents.