Does anesthesia affect children's intelligence?

Anesthesia during surgery is very important for the successful completion of the operation. Both adults and children need to be anesthetized before surgery, but does anesthesia affect children's intelligence? The anesthesia method generally used for children is a combination of sleep and pain relief. They will wake up naturally after the operation, so there are not many side effects on the body. Moreover, many drugs do not act on the brain, so there is no need to worry about intellectual damage.

The most basic concept of pediatric anesthesia is: sleep + analgesia = anesthesia. Sleep is very important for pediatric surgery because it is difficult for children to tolerate the discomfort caused by the fixed position during surgery, so they need to be given sufficient medication to help them sleep. Commonly used drugs such as sodium thiopental and diazepam have been used in clinical practice for a long time and have been proven to have no major side effects; and they can also cause the patient to wake up naturally.

Commonly used analgesics for children include local anesthetics, central analgesics and inhaled anesthetics. Spinal anesthesia, epidural anesthesia and local anesthesia all use local anesthetics, which are injected around nerve trunks, spinal cord or nerve endings to prevent pain from being transmitted to the brain and relieve pain. These drugs do not act on the brain, so they will not affect intelligence.

Inhaled anesthetics take effect by entering the bloodstream through injection or breathing into the lungs. Drugs such as ketamine, pethidine, ether, and methoxyflurane have transient effects on the brain, that is, they produce analgesic effects when they reach a certain blood concentration. However, through metabolism and transformation, the concentration in the blood gradually decreases, and the child wakes up when the drug is absorbed. As long as the supply of inhaled anesthetics is reduced, the drugs will be quickly excreted from the exhaled air, and the child will wake up from the anesthesia. Children may experience confusion and drowsiness during the process of waking up from anesthesia, but it is normal for them to respond when called.

Some people say: "Some children become stupid because of surgical anesthesia." This statement is one-sided. The activity of human brain cells is closely related to the amount of oxygen. Brain cells have a poor tolerance to hypoxia. Generally, an interruption of brain oxygen supply for 5 to 8 minutes will cause irreparable damage. During anesthesia or surgery, brain hypoxia often occurs due to vomiting, tongue falling back to block the airway, laryngeal spasm and suffocation.

Cardiac arrest, massive bleeding, and toxic shock during surgery can also cause cerebral hypoxia, which will lead to adverse consequences if not treated in time. Therefore, it cannot be simply attributed to the use of anesthetics. It should be pointed out in particular that it is difficult for children to cooperate with doctors during surgery. Even simple operations require general anesthesia, or basic anesthesia to put the child to sleep, supplemented by other anesthetics. If the child has eaten a full meal, vomiting and aspiration may easily cause airway obstruction, which may lead to cerebral hypoxia. Therefore, the child must absolutely stop eating and drinking 4 to 6 hours before the operation.

As a drug, anesthetics are not without side effects. This requires doctors to carefully select indications, master the drug dosage, maximize the strengths and avoid the weaknesses, and use it safely.