There are times when a young child needs surgery due to a medical condition, but for parents, it is often the most difficult time! The child is too young to undergo surgery, and some parents may remind the child that general anesthesia can affect the child’s intelligence! Because of the various concerns of parents, it is not uncommon for the child’s condition to be repeatedly delayed in the clinic. Today we will talk about whether general anesthesia will affect the child’s intelligence or not. Intelligence refers to the ability to recognize and understand objective things and use knowledge and experience to solve problems, including memory, observation, imagination, thinking, judgment and so on. Research shows that the more experience gained in the early stages, the more rapid the development of intelligence, childhood is the most important period of intellectual development, while the environment and education also play a decisive role. The role of anesthetics is only to block pain transmission and does not have a significant effect on the brain. During surgery, the anesthesiologist continuously administers additional anesthetic medication to the person undergoing surgery as needed. When the surgery is over, the anesthetic drug is also immediately discontinued. The principle of general anesthesia is to block the transmission of pain to the brain and to temporarily inhibit the pain reflexes and conduction of consciousness in the child. During surgery, anesthesiologists routinely monitor basic vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate charts to ensure blood supply to vital organs, and intervene to correct any discrepancies. Recent studies have shown that, regardless of local or general anesthesia, as long as there is no hypoxia to vital organs, especially the brain, during general anesthesia surgery, the mental development of infants and children is generally not affected. However, recent studies have shown that infants and young children are still at the peak of neurological development, and their neurological system has a high degree of plasticity and is easily disturbed by external factors. Therefore, if they receive general anesthesia for a long time or several times a year, it may cause changes in the structure and function of the central nervous system. This view has recently been confirmed by a large foreign sample, and it is clear that there is no basis for the notion that children will become dumber simply because they receive general anesthesia once, but does it mean that pediatric anesthesia is risk-free? The answer is: there are definitely risks, and the risks of pediatric anesthesia are higher than those of adult anesthesia. Young children, especially infants, are more prone to anesthesia accidents because their organs are not well developed and their bodies have poorer compensatory functions than those of adults, especially because they have poorer oxygen reserves and less total blood volume. Meanwhile, anatomically speaking, children generally have large heads, small necks, large tongues and other physiological characteristics, which determines that children’s airways are not easy to open and can easily cause intubation difficulties. Children are also much more difficult to manage during anesthesia than adults. …… The above conditions lead to a much higher risk of anesthesia in children than in adults. It is a big event for both the child and the child’s family when the child undergoes general anesthesia. Therefore, the day before the surgery, the anesthesia responsible for surgical anesthesia had better go to the ward and communicate carefully with the patient and the patient’s family to understand the patient’s condition, explain the matters that need attention before the surgery, calm the family’s nervousness, enlighten and encourage the child to cooperate with the doctor, try to overcome his or her fearful mood and be a brave child.