General anesthesia for a child: what is the danger of his influence on the young organism
How dangerous is General anesthesia for a child
General anesthesia is a procedure which suppress the autonomic response of the patient, cutting off his consciousness. Despite the fact that stunning is a very long time, the need for its use, especially in children, raises many fears and concerns among parents. The danger of General anesthesia for a child?
General anesthesia: is required
Many parents believe that General anesthesia is very dangerous for their child, but what exactly, I cannot say for certain. One of the main fears is that the child may not Wake up after surgery. Such cases are indeed recorded, but are extremely rare. Most often painkillers don’t have anything to do with them, and death occurs as a result of the surgery itself.
Before the anesthesia specialist obtains written permission from parents. However, before you abandon its use, should think twice as some cases require the use of complex anesthesia.
Usually General anesthesia is used if you want to disable the mind of the child, to protect him from fear, pain and prevent stress, which will test the baby, attending a private transaction that may adversely affect his fragile psyche.
Before using General anesthesia, the specialist identifies the contraindications, and the decision whether there is a need for it.
Deep sleep, provoked by drugs, allows doctors to perform long and complex surgery. The procedure is generally used in pediatric surgery, when anesthesia is vital, such as severe congenital heart defects and other abnormalities. However, anaesthesia is not such a harmless procedure.
Preparation for the procedure
Prepare your baby for the upcoming anesthesia wise for 2-5 days. For this he prescribed hypnotics and sedative drugs that influence metabolism.
About half an hour before anesthesia to the baby can enter atropine, pipolfen or promedol – tools that enhance the effect of the main anesthetic drugs and to avoid their negative impact.
Before making the manipulation of the baby hold the enema and removed from the bladder contents. 4 hours before surgery completely eliminate the intake of food and water, because during the intervention there may be vomiting, in which vomit may enter the respiratory system and cause respiratory failure. In some cases, is gastric lavage.
Procedure do with a mask or with a special tube that is placed in the trachea. Together with oxygen from the device is received anesthetic medication. In addition, intravenous anesthetics are introduced, relieves the little patient.
What is the effect of anaesthesia on the baby
Currently, the likelihood of severe consequences for the organism of the child from anesthesia is 1-2%. However, many parents are sure that the anesthesia will adversely affect their baby.
Because of the peculiarities of the growing organism, this type of anesthesia in children is slightly different. Most often anesthesia using clinically proven products of new generation, which is allowed in pediatric practice. Such remedies have least side effects and quickly extracted from the body. That is why the influence of anaesthesia on the child, and any negative impacts are minimized.
Thus, it is possible to make a prediction of the duration of exposure used drug doses, and repeat if necessary anesthesia.
The vast majority of cases, the anesthesia makes the patient’s condition and can help the work of the surgeon.
The introduction into the organism of nitric oxide, the so-called «laughing gas», leads to the fact that children undergoing surgery under General anesthesia, often don’t remember anything.
Diagnosis of complications
Even if the little patient is well prepared before surgery, it does not guarantee the absence of complications associated with anesthesia. That is why experts should know about all possible adverse effects of drugs, common of the dangerous consequences, probable causes, and ways of their prevention and elimination.
A huge role is played by adequate and timely identification of complications arising after use of anesthesia. During the transaction, and after the anesthesiologist should carefully monitor the condition of the baby.
For this specialist keeps records of all manipulations conducted, as well as submit the test results to a special card.
The map needs to be fixed:
- respiratory rate;
- the temperature reading;
- the number of transfused blood and other indicators.
This data is strictly paint by the hour. Such measures will allow time to identify any violations and quickly to eliminate them.
The influence of General anesthesia on the body of the child depends on the individual patient. Most often complications after the return of the child in the consciousness, not much different from the reaction to the anesthesia in adults.
Most frequently observed the following negative consequences:
- the emergence of allergies, anaphylaxis, angioedema;
- disorder of the heart, arrhythmia, incomplete blockade of bundle branch block;
- increased weakness, drowsiness. Most often such States are on their own after 1-2 hours;
- the increase in body temperature. Is considered normal, however, if the marker reaches up to 38 °C, there is a probability of infectious complications. Identifying the cause of this condition, doctors prescribe antibiotics;
- nausea and retching. These symptoms are treated by using antiemetics, for example, cerucalum;
- headaches, feeling of heaviness and squeezing in my temples. Usually do not require special treatment however prolonged pain symptoms specialist assigns painkillers;
- pain in the postoperative wound. Common consequence after surgery. For its elimination may apply antispasmodic or analgesic;
- fluctuation of blood pressure. There is usually caused by massive blood loss or blood transfusions;
- falling into a coma.
Any drug used for local or General anesthesia, is able to act toxic on the liver tissue of the patient, and lead to malfunction of the liver.
Side effects of the drugs used for anesthesia depend on the specific drug. Knowing about all the negative effects of prescription medications, you can avoid many dangerous consequences, one of which is liver damage:
- Ketamine, often used in anesthesia can cause psychomotor agitation, seizures, hallucinations.
- Ghb. When using large dosages can cause convulsions;
- Sux and preparations based on it are often provoke bradycardia, which threatens the termination of heart – asystole.;
- Muscle relaxants used for General anesthesia can cause a drop in blood pressure.
Fortunately, severe consequences occur very rarely.
Even if the surgery was without complications, did not have any reaction to the applied means, this does not mean that the negative impact on the child’s body has not occurred. Late complications may manifest after some time even a few years.
To dangerous long-term effects include:
- cognitive impairment: a disorder of memory, difficulty of logical thinking, difficulty concentrating on objects. In these cases, the baby is difficult to learn in school, he is often distracted, cannot read books;
- the attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity. These disorders are expressed excessive impulsiveness, a tendency to frequent injuries, restlessness;
- susceptibility to headaches, migraines, which are difficult to drown out the pain;
- frequent dizziness;
- the appearance of convulsive contractions in the muscles of the legs;
- a slowly progressing pathology of the liver and kidneys.
The professionalism of the anesthesiologist and surgeon often depends on the safety and comfort of the surgery and the absence of any dangerous consequences.
The consequences for children of 1-3 years
Due to the fact that the Central nervous system in children of early age is not fully formed, the use of General anaesthesia may have a negative impact on their development and overall condition. In addition to attention deficit disorder, pain relief can cause disorder of the brain, and lead to the following complications:
- Slow physical development. Drugs used in anesthesia, can disrupt the formation of the parathyroid glands, responsible for the growth of the baby. In these cases, it may lag in growth, but later is able to catch up with their peers.
- Disorder of psychomotor development. Such children later learn to read, difficult to remember numbers, incorrectly pronounce words, construct sentences.
- Epileptic seizures. Data breaches are fairly rare, but there are a few cases the appearance of epilepsy after surgical interventions using General anesthesia.
Is it possible to prevent complications
It is impossible to say whether there will be any consequences after surgery in kids, and also at what time, and how they can manifest. However, to reduce the likelihood of negative reactions in the following ways:
- Before surgery the child’s body must be fully examined, having passed all prescribed tests.
- After surgery you should apply the means, improving brain blood circulation, and vitamin-mineral complexes, assigned to a neurologist. Most commonly used B vitamins, piracetam, Cavinton.
- To carefully monitor the condition of the baby. After surgery, parents are required to follow its development even after some time. If there are any abnormalities worth the extra time to visit a specialist to rule out possible risks.
Once the decision on conducting the procedure, the specialist compares the necessity of the transaction with possible harm. Even after learning about the probable complications, it is not necessary to abandon the surgical procedures: this may depend not only on health but also the life of a child. The most important thing – to be attentive to his health and not to self-medicate.