Global research trends in labor analgesia: A bibliometric analysis from 2013 to 2023

Objective: In the past decade, thousands of original articles focus on labor analgesia have published. However, little has been published in the literature that includes a bibliometric analysis of labor analgesia. Therefore, this study is designed to analyze the current status of research on labor analgesia over the past ten years and explore potential directions for the future. Methods: We retrieved the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) for labor analgesia articles published from 2013 to 2023 and extracted the data from the literature. To perform the bibliometric analysis, we used CiteSpace (6.2. R5) and VOS viewer (1.6.19) as our primary analysis tools. Results: A total of 2406 articles were included, and the number of publications has increased steadily in the last ten years. The United States was the leading contributor to the area, and Harvard University was the most productive institution. The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology was the most cited and influential journal. The most co-cited reference was "Epidural versus non-epidural or no analgesia for pain management in labour". The labels of the co-citation cluster have identified the characteristics of 5major clusters, such as "postpartum depression", "programmed intermittent epidural bolus", "childbirth experience" "intrapartum maternal fever" and "dural puncture", which play important roles in this field. Keywords co-occurrence and keywords burst detection showed that "vaginal birth", "postpartum depression", "maternal fever", "inflammation", "systematic review", "guidelines", "decreased risk" and "scale" were the most recent and most prominent topics of labor analgesia. Discussion: This study provided a global review of labor analgesia using bibliometric and visual techniques to provide an intuitive understanding of this topic and identify hotspots and research trends. Notably, intrapartum fever and postpartum depression have emerged as hotpots and trends in labor analgesia research, reflecting the current research landscape.