Anesthesia May Raise Risk of Childhood Learning Disabilities

Boston (HealthKnowItAll) - Exposing young children to anesthesia may increase their likelyhood of developing a learning disability.

Sometimes, even young children need to undergo medical procedures that require a form of anesthesia a fact that must now worry parents based on a study by US researchers.

The study found that children under the age of 3, who were exposed to anesthesia more than twice, were at a significant increased risk of developing a form of learning disability.

For their study the researchers analyzed the medical records of more than 5,000 children who received medical care in either of 5 towns in Olmsted County, Minnesota.

The researchers noted that the majority of children had received the combination of halothane and nitrous oxide.

Dr. Robert Wilder, lead author of a study appearing in the April issue of Anesthesiology says that the study findings should not worry parents of young children.

“We have an association here between kids who received two or more anesthetics in surgery and an increase in learning disabilities, but we don’t have clear causality that it was the anesthetics that caused the learning disabilities.”