Problems in retrieving national data on births: questionnaire survey.

no value in the prevention of headache. Treatment of established headache after lumbar puncture includes hydration, analgesics, vasopressin, and caffeine. More invasive techniques include the installation of saline or autologous blood into the epidural space. The latter procedure (epidural blood patching) has a success rate of 90% with only minor short term sequelae. Very few of the departments in our study said that they would consider this option within the first 72 hours, although early use is strongly advocated in anaesthetic circles. This may be because other causes of the headache are more likely or because the patient has a fever, which precludes blood patching. However, epidural blood patching would be considered by a good proportion of neurologists after 72 hours.