Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine

Introduction: Rectus sheath blocks have been used for decades in the operating room for analgesia following umbilical surgical procedures. We present the first reported case series of a rectus sheath block used in the emergency department (ED) for the reduction of an umbilical hernia.

Case Series: Four patients presented to the ED for painful, non-reducible umbilical hernias. An ultrasound-guided bilateral rectus sheath block was used in all four patients with complete pain relief and an easy hernia reduction.

Conclusion: Rectus sheath blocks are an excellent addition to a multimodal analgesic regimen in periumbilical pain and painful procedures. This block is easy to perform and implement for pain control in umbilical hernias in an ED setting.