Anesthetic (General) for a one year old

[rabbit54]

My baby will have a general anesthetic at 13 months of age. He is average height, but a slim build, so a lightish weight baby. Has any one got any tips on how to commandeer the procedure?
P.s. What do the initials DD stand for, I know it means child, but all i can think of is "Due Date"..?

DD means dear daughter.

There are a couple of ways that a general anaesthetic can be administered to a young child.

The first is for a mask to be placed over their mouth and anaesthetic gases will flow through the mask.
Other anaesthetists will use drugs and put a cannula(drip) into the back of a hand and use this to administer drugs that will make your ds go to sleep.

It is normal practice in most childrens hospitals for parents to stay for the initial induction of anaesthetic and then leave.

Although very hard, try and remain as calm as possible before and during any procedure and give your ds lots of cuddles.

Make sure you have someone with you as well as a lot of parents can find watching their child being placed under anaesthetic very difficult.

hope everything goes ok for you both

Thanks cali for this. I am defo going to get my partner to do this as I get very emotional at these things and I will be there for him in the coffee room. Also, I will defo cancel the op if my DS gets a cold. The other thing is, is that my experience of General anesthetics is that they can make people vomit? Is this common and could it happen to our DS? Other than that I am already feeling calmer about the op.

the anaesthetist will explain it all to you - they are excellent.

DS3 (dear son 3!)had a GA when he was 6 months which was not a nice experience but it was all explained very well to us and we were well supported.

Good idea to have dp take ds into anaesthetic room as it isn't nice to watch your child having things done to them.

Anaesthetics can sometimes make people sick but the effects normally wear off very quickly, he'll be kept in the recovery area of theatre until he is awake, might still be a little bit groggy and will then go back to the ward.

Please just ask the staff any questions that you have and never feel that you are on your own either.

I'm taking dd2 (just 2) for a GA tomorrow, to have her tonsils out...will post any tips afterwards, asap.

My DS underwent a GA at just under 12 months. He went in for an undescended testicle. The hardest part of the whole experience for us was starving him for almost 15 hours! He wasn't allowed anything to eat or drink from midnight the night before and they didn't operate on him until 5.00pm, which we thought was very wrong and made us very.

My husband (I refused to do it)took him through to theatre for him to be put under and he said it was awful! I don't want to scare you just want to be honest.

He was under for about an hour and a half, came round, screamed the place down for about 2 minutes but more because he didn't know where he was rather than from being in pain. He then ate everything he could get his hands on but I don't remember him being sick at all. We were allowed to take him home at 8.00pm.

He recovered remarkably quickly and within a couple of days was back to his normal self.

Your little one will be absolutely fine and it is only natural as parents to worry about a serious procedure. Don't be afraid to ask any questions of the hospital staff.

My son had GA at 9 months, it was quite upsetting leaving him on the trolley in his little surgical gown to be honest, but he was absolutely fine. He had the GA through the mask which was placed over his face. When he came round after the op he was upset for a bit but after a lot of cuddles and some diluted juice that the hospital gave us he was fine. Stuffed his face full of shepherds pie and yoghurt for tea, filled his nappy, and we were allowed to go home. We found the staff very kind and helpful so do ask questions if you are unsure/upset.

rabbit54, try to ask in advance about the hospital procedure on the day itself.

The hardest thing for parents is to hand your most precious things in the world to the anesthetist. It is possibly the first time you have had to absolutely trust another person with your child's life.

Suprisingly, once you have given your baby over, a calm will settle because there is no longer anything you can do.

For my dd, who went for open heart surgery at 4 months, I got dh to carry her to the operating theatre. I followed behind. All the anesthetists and other staff were already scrubbed up and turned round when we entered the room. Dh gave her to one of them, and we were cheerily ushered out of theatre with reassurances (I never registered a thing, of course). The last I saw was dd being lowered onto the narrow operating table and a mask being fixed over her head.

She had a catheter put into her hand before the op - that was pretty traumatic for me as well.

Dd had to starve for the op. I got my MIL to comfort her because she was still bf-ing and I was concerned she would smell the milk on me and go hysterical if I refused. As it turned out, dd fell asleep in grandma's arms. Probably tired out from crying due to the catheter insertion.

Ask whether there is a queue of operations on the day itself and which number your ds is. Very frequently, if an earlier operation takes longer, your ds' operation will be delayed and he may have to starve for longer. Be prepared for this.

Definitely see if you can room in, if your ds is required to stay overnight.

All the best to your ds.

Usually young children are first in the list, so you won't have to starve them fo long after they wake up. Double check the startvation rules - for babies you are alllowed to bf a little up to a certain nuber of hours before the operation, or give a small amount of diluted v clear jiuce.

They will put 'magic cream' on your child's hand, ut may well use gas to anaesthetise him before then using the drugs through a canula in the hand. Ask the anaesthetis about this beforehand. They usually give the anaesthetic with the child sitting on your lap. With gas they do stuggle, but the more they struggle the faster they go out, as it speeds up thier breathing! It takes less than 10 seconds.

Just act as normally as spossible - the pain is all yours - children usually take these things in their stride. It does feel v emotional beforehand, but honestly, once you are there, the staf will be very helpful and professional and you can just get on with it. Though everyone cries once they have left their child on theatre.

Take food that is easy to eat and digest and that they like - he will wake up hungry.

Also take snacks for yourselves, and sneak out to eat / drink while your baby is still starving!

It will be OK, truly.

DS has had 7 GAs , the first when he was 10 months.

Hope it goes OK.

Thank you for all your kindness in spending time to write. I will phone hospital in couple of days if we don't get info through soon about the general anesthetic. His op is only an undescended teste and so I was not concerned about the operations just the GA. My Dp has read all your comments and is realising the power of mumsnet. My Ds has a little cold at the moment so I am watching that making sure it has gone by next wed when the op is happening.

rabbit54, my son had op similar to yours at 10 months old. He had a little cold but I got him seen at the docs and signed off to say he was ok to have the op.

The worst part (and I am going to be brutally honest with you here) was he fought the mask they put on him, so he was wriggling and his eyes were wide open with concern. It was over really quickly and both dh and I managed to keep it together until he was asleep before we both burst into tears.

If they are going in through the scrotum, you shouldn't be able to see the scar as they do it on the line down the middle.

My son had a cannula in his foot and this was put in after he was asleep. He was there for about 12 hours.

I hope it all goes well.

Hi rabbit, as well as a general anaesthetic to do the procedure, they may use local anaesthetic to help with pain relief after the procedure. If they do it will be put in once your child is asleep, and may be just injections in the skin around the scrotum, or an injection at the very base of the spine called a caudal. The other very common form of pain relief used for children who are having a general is to give suppositories of paracetamol, and/or diclofenac.

How your child will be put to sleep (gas or injection) common side effects, and pain relief techniques will all be discussed with you by the actual anaesthetist who will be looking after your child, before the op.

If you are in UK, the royal college of anaesthetists publish a booklet "your childs general anaesthetic" here www.rcoa.ac.uk/docs/PI_ycga.pdf

It tells you much of what is already here.

Well my DS had his op yesterday and i managed to hold back the tears and only shed them twice. Once while I was waiting and I felt the op was going on for longer than i expected and second when DS was coming round from the aneasthetic in the recovery room. The advice i want to add to this discussion, from my experience, is that when DS was wailing post op in the recovery room we held back from giving him codiene because i came to realise that he was wailing from coming into consciousness from the aneasthetic and he was not in pain. The "coming to" took a while. We took it in turns to walk around with him in our arms talking to him saying his name while he wailed. If we had taken up the offer to give him codiene (thinking he was crying from pain) then he would have been sluggish once conscious and then we would have not experienced the clear recovery, and his laughter which we did an hour later. He was full of beans, laughing by an hour post op. Also 24hrs later and he is his normal self on just two doses of Calpol! The bruising on his scrotum is purple, but strangley he does not seem bothered. P.s. The NHS team were of a high professional standard. Thank goodness for the NHS of the UK.

Have plent of exerience of my dc and anaesthetic, I have always found if they go under it upset, they normally come round upset, it is nearly like someone pressed a pause button

It was different for us, my DS went under like quietly falling asleep. He even watched the needle go in fascinated and in silence, no anxiety at all.

Mine have normally had the mask, maybe that was the difference, nearly was knocked out myself once as was holding ds on my knee while they were giving it to me him, kissing and hugging him, that only for a nurse made me turn my head away, I would have been gone

glad to hear ds op went fine, it is amazing how quickly children recover!

This has been really useful to me aswell. My DS was due to have GA today, but we cancelled the appointment at the last minute because he had a slight cough and the doctor said it wasn't worth the risk for a non urgent procedure.

Now we have to go through the sleepless night all over again in 2 weeks!