6 day old baby didn't react well to general anaesthesia

Tigress2014 · 2016-12-19 17:39:12

Hi - sorry in advance this is going to be a long one! I suffer from extreme anxiety. My eldest son was born and at the 6 week check they found that one of his testicles had twisted when I had been pregnant with him. Since then I have been very anxious about his remaining ball. I had my third son in September and my anxiety went into overkill. On day 6 (notoriously a bad day apparently!!) I thought one of his balls was a bit larger than the other so decided to check it out in A&E - more for reassurance than anything else. When we arrived it looked completely normal so I thought it must have just been a combination of anxiety and it being positioned funny momentarily. We thought we would just get reassurance from the consultant and been on our way. Anyhow, the consultant decided it wasn't normal and that he should do a scrotal exploration under general anaesthetic. My eldest son had had one at 3 months of age to secure the remaining ball and it had been fine so we were more panicked about the consultant thinking there was something wrong than with the anaesthetic. We were given 5 minutes to decide and felt we had no choice but to go ahead even though his balls looked totally fine to us. A really stupid move. It was meant to be a 20-30 minute operation but two hours later we were told he was out of theatre - no explanation of the delay. And his ball had not twisted and had been absolutely fine - so an operation and general for absolutely no reason. I went down to recovery an hour later and my poor baby wasn't moving, was on oxygen and his stomach was distended so much I could see all his veins. Again, no explanation. He had to stay in hospital for two days during which he was on wafting oxygen and hardly woke, he vomited bright yellow material and his stomach remained distended. We were so relieved when he started to recover and we took him home two days later. His stomach remained distended for a couple of weeks but he started to be more alert each day that went by. He is now nearly 4 months and looks perfectly healthy, gorgeous and meeting milestones. We were so upset that no-one had offered any explanation and requested the operation and anaesthetic records. We aren't medical but it looked like his oxygen levels dropped to 78% for a couple of mminutes and were mainly in the low 90's, that the anaesthetist had given him a large dose of fentanyl (opioid) at the end of the operation and that shortly after his respiratory rate dropped to almost zero. His blood pressure was low and had to be corrected and he had to stay in theatre for an hour after the surgery ended - presumably to stabilise him. The anaesthetist had to stay in recovery with him for 40 minutes as he wasn't breathing appropriately - sleep apnoea. The anaesthetist record also said he had sevoflurane (anaesthetic) in his end tidal breaths for a long time. To learn all this has really bowled me over. For one thing, I have horrendous anxiety and OCD to start with and now my days are spent torturing myself about why was I stupid enough to take him to A&E in the first place, of images of his distended tummy and his ill sleepy face and I have convinced myself that he will get cancer or organ failure because of this. Are there any nurses or anaesthetist out there who can help me understand how bad this is please? We don't really know how common a reaction like this is in a newborn baby. We have complained about the anaesthetist - mainly because we had agreed with the trainee (who was sent to speak to us beforehand) that they would do a caudal with no opioid (which was then disregarded) - but also because of the lack of empathy and communication. Has anyone had their very new baby operated on and have a similar reaction and they've been fine? I just feel sick. My partner won't talk about it - other than hinting that it was me who started the chain of causation - and I can't get on with life or enjoy my baby. Any help/advice gratefully received. x

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Children's health

This thread has been deleted

We're deleting this thread, at the OP's request, for privacy reasons.