“My child is 5 years old and has been found to have congenital heart disease and needs surgery. I have heard that children will become stupid after general anesthesia, is this true? Does anesthesia affect the child’s intelligence or not?” Clinically, in the pre-surgery anesthesia visit with the child’s parents to sign the anesthesia consent form, some parents often put forward this request, because parents feel that anesthesia will affect the child’s future intellectual development and memory. 1, anesthesia really affect the child’s intelligence? Comparatively speaking, the possibility of anesthesia accidents in children is still greater than that of adults, because children’s organs are not well developed and their compensatory function is poorer than that of adults, so they are more likely to have anesthesia accidents. According to experts, anesthesia drugs only have a temporary effect on children’s nerves, and the function of the nervous system will return to normal after anesthesia. At present, there is no institution in the world as well as the data show that in the regular anesthesia operation, the child’s intelligence and anesthesia have a direct relationship. 2, intelligence and anesthesia are not directly related to pediatric anesthesia is basically: sleep + pain = anesthesia. Sleep is very important for pediatric surgery, because children will have a high degree of fear of surgery, and it is difficult to tolerate the pain and the uncomfortable feeling caused by the fixed position during the operation, so it is necessary to give a sufficient amount of drugs to sleep, and commonly used such as Valium, Imipramine, etc. Clinical applications have been a long time, and have proved that there are no major side effects, and can wake up naturally. Pediatric painkillers commonly used local anesthetics, central analgesics and inhalational anesthetics. At present, the clinical use of central analgesics, inhalational anesthetics are injected subcutaneously or inhaled by the lungs into the bloodstream and play a role, this way of action on the brain is a transient, that is, the concentration of the blood reaches a certain amount of pain when the effect. When the drug is metabolized and transformed, the concentration in the blood decreases, the pain-relieving effect is reduced, and the anesthesia becomes shallow; when the drug is about to be drained, the child will be awake. As long as the supply of inhalational anesthetics is reduced, the drug is quickly eliminated from the whistled gas, and the child awakens as the anesthesia becomes lighter. Children in the anesthesia awake process in a trance, drowsiness phenomenon, but whistle can respond. Therefore, anesthesia drugs only have a temporary effect on the child’s nerves, and after anesthesia, the nervous system can return to normal. At present, there is no evidence from any institution in the world that there is a direct relationship between a child’s intelligence and anesthesia under regular anesthesia. Of course, there is no evidence that anesthesia has no effect on the nervous system of children. 3, pediatric anesthesia is higher risk than adults It may be said that some children are just stupid because of surgical anesthesia. This situation should be analyzed specifically. As we all know, the tolerance of human brain cells to hypoxia is very poor, generally interrupt the oxygen supply to the brain for 5 to 8 minutes, will cause irreparable damage to brain cells. During anesthesia or surgery, if the patient vomits due to various stimuli, the tongue falls back to block the airway, laryngeal spasm occurs asphyxia and other situations will lead to cerebral hypoxia. Cerebral hypoxia can also occur during surgical cardiac arrest, hemorrhage, and hemorrhagic shock, which, if not rescued in time, can lead to mental retardation or other more serious consequences. These are all accidents that can occur during anesthesia, and cannot simply be assumed to be caused by the use of anesthetics. Although the claim that children will become stupid because of surgical anesthesia is unfounded, does it mean that pediatric anesthesia is risk-free? The answer is: there are definitely risks, and in a sense, pediatric anesthesia is more risky than adult anesthesia. This is because children’s organs are not well developed and their compensatory functions are poorer than those of adults, so they are more prone to anesthesia accidents. Therefore, for older children, if they can really cooperate during the operation, it is of course better not to have anesthesia as much as possible, so that the safety factor will be relatively higher. However, for younger children, it is true that the only way to complete the operation successfully is through anesthesia, and parents do not have to refuse anesthesia for fear of affecting the child’s intelligence. Of course, anesthesia as a special drug also has certain side effects, anesthesia process is not a needle inserted to let the child sleep so simple, professional anesthesiologists need to carefully select the indications and master the dose of the drug can be used safely, and the operation requires a high degree of responsibility of anesthesiologists to carefully observe the child’s response to the drug and surgery, and at the same time to the possibility of accidents can be taken effective countermeasures. The anesthesiologist should also be able to take effective countermeasures against possible accidents.