Paediatric anaesthesia
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Paediatric anaesthesia · May 2024
Observational StudyComparison of gastric emptying time between breast-fed and formula milk-fed infants less than 6 months old, using gastric ultrasound-An observational study.
Fasting before elective anesthesia care is a standardized practice worldwide. The aim is to decrease the risk of aspiration leading to pulmonary complications such as aspiration pneumonitis during anesthesia care. There are different guidelines for elective preoperative fasting in children. However, there is insufficient literature measuring gastric emptying time after breast milk or formula milk feeding in infants. ⋯ In our series, the gastric emptying times in breast-fed and formula-fed infants less than 6 months old were similar. Our results support the fasting guidelines of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care 2022, that is, 3 h for breastfeeding and 4 h for formula milk feeding. In addition, this shows that the Schmitz's and Spencer's formulae used to calculate the gastric volume based on ultrasound measurement of the antral cross-sectional area are not comparable in infants less than 6 months.