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Regional anaesthesia (epidural and spinal) is the cornerstone of obstetric anaesthesia and analgesia. In the beginning of the 21 century, about 80% of the parturient take benefits from these techniques during labour and delivery. However, very few situations represent absolute or relative contraindications to regional anaesthesia. The adequate knowledge of these contraindications prevents to expose our patients to an increased risk of complications of regional techniques but also avoid depriving them of their benefits in the name of false contraindications. This paper reviews the problems of patient refusal, site of puncture's infection, intracranial hypertension, hypovolemia, inherited and acquired coagulopathy, allergy to local anaesthetics, hyperthermia, cardiopathy, neurological diseases, spinal abnormalities, cervical dilation and lumbar tattoo. All together, it estimated that less than 0.5% of the parturient are contraindicated to regional anaesthesia in obstetrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]