When patients receive general anesthesia, they are unable protect their own airways or keep them clear. As a result, anesthesiologists were very concerned about patients having any food in their stomach before receiving anesthesia. In the 1950s, two research papers were published regarding pregnant women who received heavy anesthesia during delivery, then died when they aspirated the contents of their stomachs. Why have doctors traditionally recommended that patients fast before surgery? We spoke with Wahr to discuss the new take on the longtime approach. “We have good evidence that drinking clear liquids until two hours before surgery is safe, but we continue to have this dogma about not eating or drinking anything after midnight, which is just a number picked out of the air,” said Anesthesiologist Joyce Wahr, MD, FAHA, the director of the new University of Minnesota Health Preoperative Assessment Center (PAC). In both 19, the American Society of Anesthesiologists issued NPO guidelines that permitted the consumption of clear liquids until two hours before surgery for all healthy patients undergoing elective procedures requiring general anesthesia, regional anesthesia or sedation/analgesia.ĭespite the recent recommendations, many anesthesiologists continue adhere to “NPO past midnight” rule for all surgical patients. New research suggests that the “NPO after midnight” rule is unnecessarily strict for patients scheduled to undergo surgery.
For decades, anesthesiologists advised patients not to eat or drink at all after midnight the night before their surgery-a guideline referred to in the medical world as “NPO after midnight.”īut experts are now revisiting the old standard.
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