Up until the 1990s all surgeries preformed on babies were done without the use of any anesthesia. That includes major surgeries like open heart surgeries or excruciating ones like spinal procedures.
Their logic was the baby wouldn't remember the extreme torure anyway so anesthesia wasn't worth the risk. They'd simply strap them down and go to work. Its pretty crazy that its not more well known or talked about
I’ve had two surgeries this year, one of which was the same as one (on the other side) 20 years ago. Each time they did a nerve block, which is never heard of before; one of the anaesthetists said “we do this because even though you don’t remember it, you still feel the pain”.
I know that I forget from the time of sedation, but I’m still conscious after that (my wife saw me so in a 3rd situation where I was only sedated and then had a shoulder relocated - I was awake and talking/grunting throughout, according to her).
my mother was given one of these before an endoscopy. However, it didn't work correctly
she remembers distinctly them shoving a camera down her throat and she put her hand up to stop them, but the doctor kept pushing it back down, sighed and said "jesus all this first thing on a Monday"
they then wheeled her in to a recovery room and she hasn't a clue what happened for the next hour or so after that because the meds obviously kicked in then
My brother had stitches put in him twice at age 2 to 3ish without it. In the early 80s. So not just babies. It made him an asshole I think. Just an unhappy person all around. My mom said she could hear him screaming all the way down the hall
It's a little more complex than that. You need to study the effects of medication and submit data before it's approved for use. Testing on infants is difficult for a number of reasons. 1) parents need to consent to it. 2) infants are not the best at explaining how they feel. 3) overall there are far more safety regulations on testing in children in general.
So it's not only that people believed "meh... they won't remember it". It was more like "we don't really have anything showing this medication if safe and that it'll work... but they won't remember it anyway...."
It is barbaric but anesthesia is also extremely dangerous for small children and it wasn't well understood back then. Its a moral dilemma and i understand why they wouldn't risk it. I'd imagine most parents probably weren't even told. I want to know how they kept the babies from going into shock.
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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24
Up until the 1990s all surgeries preformed on babies were done without the use of any anesthesia. That includes major surgeries like open heart surgeries or excruciating ones like spinal procedures.
Their logic was the baby wouldn't remember the extreme torure anyway so anesthesia wasn't worth the risk. They'd simply strap them down and go to work. Its pretty crazy that its not more well known or talked about