Does Anesthesia lowers IQ before 3rd Birthdays of Children

New research finds no indication that children administered anesthesia before their third birthdays have lower IQs than those who did not have it. A more multifaceted picture emerges among people who had anesthesia several times as small children: Although their intelligence is comparable, they score modestly lower on tests measuring fine motor skills, and their parents are more likely to report behavioral and learning problems. Memory, Intelligence, and several other measures of brain function that are similar among the groups.

However, those with multiple exposures to anesthesia had modest declines in fine motor skills, such as the ability to draw figures with a pencil, and how quickly they processed information when reading. Their parents reported more learning and behavioral problems, such as difficulty reading; behaviors consistent with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; breaking rules; or displaying aggression, anxiety or social withdrawal.

Parents whose children had anesthesia once under age 3 reported more problems with mental skills known as executive functions -- skills that help with memory, impulse control, planning, and flexibility -- but not with other behaviors. Infants who undergo surgery, results overall are reassuring children who are receiving multiple anesthetics, it's important to note that our results don't allow us to accomplish that anesthesia itself.

In the intervening time, most cases the benefit of surgery outweighs any risk. However, the capacity for problems may need to be part of the decision-making process when parents and surgeons discuss surgery.

Mostly it gets initiated by the following factors:

•         Deep Anesthetic level with adequate muscle relaxation and blunting response to intubation
•          No hypoxia
•          No coughing

There are ethical problems of carrying out high-quality studies in pediatrics but important findings on the prevention of anesthetic neurotoxicity; minimizing intraoperative blood loss, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, examining optimal doses and choices of anesthetic agents.