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General anaesthetic during pregnancy

5 replies

bunnyfrance · 03/02/2011 10:28

Hi all,

I have a breast abscess which may have to be operated on, under a general. I'm 12 weeks pregnant.

Has anyone else had a general anaesthetic while pregnant? How far along were you and was the baby ok afterwards?

Thanks for any replies - need reassurance!

OP posts:

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tlise · 06/02/2011 22:10

Nasty. I had that but wasn't pregnant at the time. If the hospital have said thats what you have to have, and they are aware you are pregnant, I am sure it will be fine. I know sometimes in the case of an emergency c section, they give mums a general as its quicker so I would have thought it was safe.

Have you asked your mw or gp? sorry can't be any more help x

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Sparklies · 06/02/2011 23:12

I had a general anaesthetic at 13 weeks for an operation to fit a transabdominal stitch (same sort of surgery as for a c-section). I was under for about an hour.

Baby was absolutely fine - it's actually really common. I know quite a few ladies on a due date board elsewhere who have had surgery during pregnancy too with no problems.

Obviously it's not ideal, but if the benefits outweigh the risks then it's usually fine.

The biggest drawback is you tend to have less pain medication to choose from afterwards, but you can still have stuff like morphine and codeine so it's not the end of the world.

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Dartfordmummy · 07/02/2011 05:13

I had a general anaesthetic at about 14 weeks. There are different levels you can had and they made sure they only gave me a light one. My surgeon was great but some tried to scare me with the possibility of something happening to the baby. Honestly you'll be fine - i'm 31 wks now. The worst thing as sparklies said was the lack of pain relief after - i can recommend morphine though!!

Good luck x

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ben5 · 07/02/2011 05:19

I had a GA at 28 weeks. ds1 is now 7 healthy,happy and a handfull. typical boy into everything!
good luck and look after yourself!

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bunnyfrance · 08/02/2011 06:43

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies. Well, the op's over and done with (and just in time - the abscess burst on the way in to theatre...) I was under for 20 minutes and they did an ultrasound of the baby straight afterwards, all is well.

However, they did say that I couldn't have morphine due to the minimal risk of the baby becoming addicted. So I had some other painkiller, not sure what.