When is the best time to have hernia surgery in children?

Currently, the best treatment for pediatric hernia is surgery. However, some parents have problems. When they take their children to the hospital for surgery, the doctors refuse to perform the surgery, saying that the child’s current condition is not suitable for surgery. So when is the best time for children to undergo hernia surgery? Today, I will tell you how to perform surgery on children's hernia.

There are conservative treatments for children's inguinal hernia, such as drug therapy and hernia belt therapy. Currently, the most reliable and safest treatment is still surgical treatment. As children's abdominal muscles become stronger during their growth and development, surgery usually only requires high ligation of the hernia sac, that is, surgical closure of the processus vaginalis. Hernia surgery in children is less traumatic and can usually be completed in 15 to 30 minutes. Although there are complications such as hernia recurrence, postoperative hematoma, and vas deferens injury, their incidence is extremely low and can be avoided through meticulous surgical operations. It should be pointed out that nearly one-third of children with unilateral indirect hernia do not have closure of the contralateral processus vaginalis. After surgery on one side, the contralateral side may also become ill due to abdominal pressure. Therefore, for children with unilateral indirect hernia, attention should also be paid to the possibility of disease on the contralateral side.

As for the timing of surgery, generally speaking, surgical treatment can be performed after the inguinal hernia is diagnosed to prevent multiple occurrences of incarcerated hernia. For infants aged 1 to 3 months, surgery is recommended after half a year due to their weak tissues; for children who are weak and prone to colds, long-term coughing is likely to lead to frequent incarceration. At this time, the original disease should be treated first, and surgical treatment should be performed in the appropriate season; for children with serious diseases, such as congenital heart disease, malnutrition, etc., surgery should be postponed.