Modern medical diagnostic procedures, such as MRI, have improved our ability to diagnose and manage disease processes in children. These procedures often require a child to be immobile for a prolonged period. It would be uncommon for an infant or a small child to remain immobile for 30 – 90 minutes unless they are very ill. Because of this, many children, including infants, require sedation for these procedures.
There are risks in sedating children for a diagnostic procedure that are independent of the risks of the procedure itself. Some infants require deep sedation or general anesthesia in order to obtain the conditions that allow for the best possible result. Sedation for children, even young children, is sometimes not managed by anesthesiologists, the professionals that are trained to do this.
In fact, what you call the person that is managing the sedation is not nearly so important as whether or not they have the skills to deal with an obstructed airway – which is common in the deeply sedated patients. So, if you are a parent, ask.
If you have an interest in issues relating to pediatric sedation, go to wildcatanesthesia.com where you will find, under the subspecialty tag, a comprehensive manual of pediatric sedation prepared by Carrie Makin, RN, BSN and myself.
Rae
Posted by raebrown 
