Anesthesia Linked to Children's Behavioral Disorders

[Guest guest]

http://www.naturalnews.com/025946.html

 

Children who receive general anesthesia at a young age are significantly more

likely to suffer later from behavioral or developmental disorders, according to

a study conducted by researchers from Columbia University and presented at the

annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Researchers compared 625 children who had been given general anesthesia for a

hernia surgery they received before the age of three with 5,000 children who had

never been given general anesthesia. All children in the study were born between

1999 in 2000, and the children with an anesthesia history were part of the New

York State Medicaid program.

The researchers found that children who had been anesthetized at a young age

were more than twice as likely to suffer from behavioral, language or other

developmental disorders as those who had not: 4.8 percent of the anesthetized

children had been diagnosed with such disorders, compared with only 1..5 percent

of the children in the control group.

Researcher Lena Sun said that the study should not lead parents to prevent their

children from having needed surgeries, but that it does emphasize the need for

more research on the risks of anesthesia.

She noted that economically disadvantaged children such as those in the current

study might also be more susceptible to behavioral and developmental disorders

or to the risks of anesthesia than the general population. But the results of

the current study could not be explained away by other risk factors such as

demographic status, low birth weight, premature birth or infection, she added.

In addition, studies on mice have previously linked anesthesia to various kinds

of brain damage.

The researchers are now planning a follow-up study in which children who were

given general anesthesia at a young age will be compared to siblings who were

never given such anesthesia.

" Our findings are preliminary but provocative, " Sun said.

Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com; www.webmd.com.

Love, Gabby. :0)

http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/

 

" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport