For 2-year-old children, they may need to undergo surgical treatment due to health reasons, which typically involves an anesthesia procedure, with general anesthesia being one common method. Many parents are concerned that general anesthesia may have adverse effects on their children. In fact, general anesthesia is achieved by medication to temporarily render the child unconscious, ensuring the smooth progress of the surgery. During this process, the child’s breathing is assisted by medical devices to ensure sufficient oxygen supply and maintain normal blood pressure and heart rate, thus avoiding adverse effects on the respiratory and circulatory systems as well as the risk of brain hypoxia.
While children under general anesthesia lose consciousness and sensation, they gradually regain consciousness post-anesthesia. This state is similar to natural sleep and does not have long-term effects on a child’s intellectual development or other bodily functions. Hence, when surgery requires general anesthesia, following the doctor’s professional advice for general anesthesia is a crucial measure to ensure the success of the surgery.
Current research indicates that prolonged periods of general anesthesia (exceeding three hours each time) may pose potential risks to the neurological systems of children. However, the scientific community has not reached a definite conclusion on how exactly and to what extent general anesthesia affects the nervous system. Based on current knowledge, anesthesiologists generally believe that children under 3 years of age who need to undergo general anesthesia more than three times, with each anesthesia session lasting more than three hours, may increase the risk of neurological damage. For children over 3 years old, general anesthesia is considered relatively safe.
