New research indicates that the foetus’ brain development is not at risk if pregnant women undergo anaesthesia.
The findings, released yesterday in *Anaesthesia* come from a study of over 500 children who were assessed in childhood. They were selected from a database showing their mothers were given anaesthesia for non-obstetric surgery, usually for a medical emergency.
Their neurodevelopment was compared with that of children whose mothers were not given anaesthesia during pregnancy.
Project leader, Professor Steffen Rex, of the University of Leuven, Belgium, and the team say this is the most extensive study so far in this area.
About one in a hundred women need anaesthesia for surgery while pregnant, and it has been linked to foetal brain damage in reviews of experimental animal studies.
As a result, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a statement in 2016 that ‘repeated or prolonged use of general anaesthesia in pregnant women during their third trimester may result in impaired neurodevelopmental outcomes for the exposed children’.
However, in this large study there were no statistically significant differences in any of the measured outcomes.
Hence the researchers conclude that there is no risk of ‘clinically meaningful impairments’ in the child’s neurodevelopmental outcomes.
"While the results of our study do not change the recommendation that only urgent and essential surgical procedures should be performed during pregnancy, our findings can be used to provide reassurance to women who do require surgery during pregnancy,’ the authors state.’
Rex, S. et al. Neurodevelopmental outcomes after prenatal exposure to anaesthesia for maternal surgery: a propensity-score weighted bidirectional cohort study, *Anaesthesia* 25 October 2022
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