Children and Anesthesia

Baby on a bed
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Anesthesiologist Lewis Satloff, MD, practices anesthesiology as a staff member at McAllen Anesthesia Associates in Edinburg, Texas. In addition, he serves on staff at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance. Possessing more than three decades of medical experience, Lewis Satloff, MD, works in both pediatric and adult anesthesiology.

In medicine, and particularly anesthesia, the cardinal rule is that children are not simply small adults. This is largely due to the huge range of variability in children. Children encompass a wide range of sizes and shapes, from preemies to teenagers.

As a result of this variability, children have significant physiological and anatomical differences in systems, such as the cardiovascular system, the renal system, and the central nervous system. Children also have a larger tongue, narrower nasal passages, a higher larynx, and a proportionately larger head, compared to most adults. All these factors affect the way anesthesia is administered and how certain medications affect the patient.