A Mayo Clinic study finds no evidence that children given anesthesia before their third birthdays have lower IQs than those who did not have it. A more complex 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. The findings are published in Anesthesiology.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned in 2016 that prolonged or repeated sedation before age 3 may affect brain development. The warning was based largely on data from animals, which may or may not apply to children.
Mayo researchers studied 997 people born from 1994 through 2007 in Olmsted County, Minnesota, the home of Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus. They were grouped according to the anesthesia exposures they had before their third birthdays: 206 had two or more; 380 had one; and 411 had none. Ear, nose and throat procedures were the most common surgeries.
The researchers used the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical records database, brain function testing at ages 8-12 or 15-20, and parent reports to assess behavior and brain function. Beyond their anesthesia exposure, the three groups of patients were matched to be as similar as possible.
Read more at Mayo Clinic
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