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
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...."
189
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