Temperature Changes During Induction of General Anesthesia in Pediatric Patients

Some anesthesiologists cover the pediatric patient with a blanket during the induction of general anesthesia, while others do not. Complaints have been raised by pediatric surgeons that if a pediatric patient is not covered during induction of general anesthesia, the child's core body temperature will be lower than normal following surgery and in the recovery room.

Children are at risk of significant heat loss in the operating room due to multiple factors, such as, exposure to cold temperatures, decrease in metabolism following induction of general anesthesia, increased surface-area-to-volume ratio, and through considerable respiratory heat loss.1

A decrease in temperature of 0.5ºC to 1.5ºC can occur during induction of general anesthesia in pediatric patients2. The use of heating blankets and warmers may increase temperature or result in a constant temperature on pediatric patients intra-operatively3. We want to investigate the differences in temperature between the two approaches, covering and not covering pediatric patients, during induction of general anesthesia of a urologic procedure with a caudal block and the difference in temperature post-operatively. We hypothesize that the core temperatures of:

1. the covered and warmed group during induction of general anesthesia will be greater by 0.5ºC than the uncovered group during induction of general anesthesia.
2. both groups, covered and uncovered, will be equal during surgery and post-operatively. In other words, due to the active warming procedures during surgery and post-operatively in the PICU, core temperatures of the uncovered group will catch up to the covered group.