PREOPERATIVE FASTING AMOUNTING TO DEHYDRATION IN PEDIATRICS AGE GROUP- AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

Introduction: Pre-preoperative fasting, a universally practiced principle in elective cases helps to reduce the risk of pulmonary aspiration of gastric contents. Prolonged fasting for 8-10 hours has been practiced at various places to avoid complications like Mendelson's Syndrome and Aspiration Pneumonia. However, prolonged fasting may be an unpleasant experience causing distress, irritability, dehydration and hypoglycemia especially in pediatric patients. Studies have reported many children end up fasting for up to 12 or 15 hours inspite of recommended 6-4-2 guidelines, leading to side-effects like, hypoglycemia, metabolic acidosis, dehydration.In this study, we tried to acertain the dehydration status due to various reasons and also suggested a solution for the same. To assess the Aims dehydration status of pediatric patient based on clinical dehydration scale. (1) T Objectives: o asses the complaints of paient suggesting dehydration on well designed proforma.(2) To asses amount of dehydartion according to dryness of mucous membranes by using nger print impression This randomised trial was conducted on 100 NBM paediatric patients Materials And Methods: in age group of 0-14 yrs at Dr. D.Y.Patil Medical College ,Pune. Time at which the patient was wheeled into operation theater, duration of preoperative fasting was noted ,calculated, analyzed and compared. The tongue was assessed to nd the degree of hydration with help of nger impression from moist tongue on parchment paper and scoring was given as follows: Scoring:5- almost full nger impression,3- half nger impression and 1-No nger impression. The nger impression test was, No impression (score=1) in 40 patient Result: s, half nger impression (score=3) in 37 patients and almost full nger impression (score =5) in 23 patients. Fasting time for pe Conclusion: diatric patients in our study were typically far longer than current guidelines. This can be attributed to surgery timings of previous patients inside the theatre leading to prolonged fasting time.