Anesthesia is indispensable for surgical patients. The choice of anesthesia depends on the surgical site, nature and physical condition of the patient, and age is also a factor in the choice of anesthesia. For adults, the surgical cooperation is good and the choice of anesthesia is larger. If local anesthesia is needed, general anesthesia is usually not used. For children. The younger the child, the more general anesthesia is chosen. Because young children can not cooperate with surgery, lying on the operating table can not be quiet, only general anesthesia can make those who can not cooperate with infants and children in a state of sleep or anesthesia to complete the entire procedure. General anesthesia is a type of anesthesia that is often used during surgery, which allows the patient to lose consciousness and sensation for a certain period of time and to undergo surgical treatment without pain. So, does general anesthesia affect a child’s mental development? This is the biggest common concern of many parents of children who need to undergo surgery. The reason why parents are strongly resistant to general anesthesia is because parents are worried that their children will become dumber with anesthesia, and their intelligence and memory will not be as good as before, or even affect their learning and development, although this feeling is understandable, but this worry is unnecessary. This is because the drug only works temporarily on the child’s nerves, and the nervous system will return to normal after the anesthesia. There are no institutions or data worldwide that show a direct relationship between a child’s mental development and anesthesia under regular anesthesia. Anesthetics work by blocking nociceptive transmission. General anesthetics are a class of drugs that are administered systemically through intravenous or respiratory inhalation methods so that the drug acts on the central nervous system to achieve the anesthetic effect of loss of consciousness and no response to the stimulus of surgical operation. During the operation, the anesthesiologist has to continuously provide additional anesthetic drugs to the child according to the needs of the operation. When the operation is over, the anesthetic drug is also discontinued. At the same time, the anesthesia machine can display the vital indicators, closely monitor the blood supply of the brain, heart, kidneys and other important organs, found the slightest difference, the anesthesiologist will promptly correct. All general anesthetics currently in clinical use have a one-off effect, that is, after a short period of metabolic decomposition and excretion, the anesthetic effect will completely disappear, and will not leave any permanent damage to the central nervous system and adverse reactions. Therefore, parents do not have to worry about the use of general anesthetics will affect the child’s brain or intellectual development. Therefore, unless there is an anesthetic accident, general anesthesia will not have an adverse effect on the child’s intellectual development. The risk of anesthesia is that if hypoxia occurs during surgery, it can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, because the human brain is very sensitive to the need for oxygen, especially in children, and continuous hypoxia may produce some irreversible damage. Parents need to pay attention to the fact that the child must be fasted before the operation as required, otherwise the accidental aspiration caused by the child vomiting during anesthesia is also very dangerous. It is common knowledge that you cannot drink or eat for 6 hours before surgery, but many parents cannot afford to have their children pampered and think that it does not matter much if they eat something, which is not true. This is because a child with a full stomach is prone to respiratory blockage due to vomiting, which then causes cerebral hypoxia. Therefore, 4 hours after gastric emptying is the best safe time for surgery. We hope that parents will have a scientific understanding of anesthesia and will not delay their child’s surgery because of fear of anesthesia. There is a fine line in choosing the timing of anesthesia. Although general anesthesia will not bring intellectual damage to young children, but in choosing the timing of pediatric surgery anesthesia, anesthesia experts have made several recommendations: 1. Because of the poor anatomical development, physiological function and compensatory capacity of the pediatric respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems compared to adults, anesthesia management will be more difficult than that of adults, i.e., the chances of anesthesia accidents and comorbidities are higher than those of adults, especially those within 3 years of age infants and children. Therefore, for elective surgery, it is recommended that children should be allowed to grow up before surgery, provided that the surgical effect is not affected; 2. The misconception that “general anesthesia is more dangerous than local anesthesia” should be corrected. For example, a highly nervous child will increase heart rate and blood pressure, and the risk of intraoperative bleeding will increase. 3. Since pediatric anesthesia requires specialized anesthesia equipment and monitoring facilities, parents are advised to consider the operating room conditions and the technical level of anesthesia in addition to the surgeon’s choice when choosing a hospital, which is necessary to ensure smooth and successful surgery and improve the safety of surgical anesthesia. Myth: Postoperative unresponsiveness is the effect of anesthetics on intelligence Do not mistake the unresponsiveness of children during the postoperative recovery period for the effect of anesthetics on intelligence. Because of the low metabolic rate and poor excretory function of children, coupled with the “secondary distribution” of anesthetic drugs stored in fat, muscle and other tissues in the blood after surgery, children still have some residual anesthetics in their blood, showing indifferent expression and slow reaction during the postoperative recovery period. This phenomenon is the normal metabolic process of anesthetic drugs, as long as the “call can be answered” is a normal phenomenon, do not need to worry about. The first step in anesthesia is to put a mask on the baby, who will smell an anesthetic gas. This anesthetic is called sevoflurane, which is known as a landmark drug for inhalation anesthesia and is safe and painless for general anesthesia in children. The baby gradually drifts off to sleep and does not feel anything. At this point, the anesthesiologist will establish intravenous access and intubate or use a laryngeal mask to ensure that the baby’s airway is open and has adequate oxygen throughout the procedure. The first step of anesthesia induction is complete, and the baby will not struggle with terror and pain. Next, during the procedure, the anesthesiologist will administer medication to maintain the baby in a drowsy anesthetic state. During the entire procedure, the baby’s circulation, breathing, oxygen level in the blood, etc. are closely monitored and very safe. At the end of the procedure, the anesthesiologist stops administering the medication and the child gradually awakens from the anesthesia. This anesthesia is administered by inhalation and the drug is metabolized quickly. The baby will wake up from the anesthesia soon after the medication is stopped. Most dermatologic procedures are short in duration and all use smaller amounts of anesthetic drugs.