Unfortunately, surgical operations require hungry tummies. This can be very distressing for both parents and children, but it is vital to adhere to the feeding guidelines before entering the theatre.
When your child is anaesthetised, their body, including the stomach and reflexes, relax. So any food or fluid in your child’s stomach will flow up the food pipe and down into the lungs and drown them. We must be strict about this, even though your child might cry for food.
We understand that this is distressing, and we try our best to arrange the operating times list in such a way that the smallest children are operated on first. Everyone gets fed as close to operating time as possible, but life happens, and this may not always go according to plan.