At the surgical appointments prior to your child’s surgery, your surgeon is likely to have a few pointers on how to prepare them for their craniofacial surgery from spending time with them and getting to know their personality. The most important thing to remember is that your child having surgery young minimizes their pain, discomfort and any social anxieties they may begin to feel with age having a craniofacial abnormality.
To help you feel ready for the day of the operation, we’ve written a short guide of points below which has always proven successful in pediatric patients at Brooks Plastic Surgery. We want both you and your child to feel one hundred percent comfortable about the upcoming procedure and are happy to discuss this at length with you along with post-op and aftercare details to put your mind at ease.
How to Prepare Your Child
Many children benefit from being told about the procedure early on with no real-time estimate put in place or in relation to themselves. This helps them to understand how things work. The nursing staff and Dr. Brooks are more than happy to show how things work and give tours of facilities you’ll use during your stay.
It’s best to wait until just a few days before the surgery to mention it properly to your child. Younger children don’t yet have a grasp on longer periods of time and there’s no need to worry or stress them unnecessarily by telling them of something that is still months away.
However, in older children it’s better to be as honest and open as possible and this will begin at the consultation and appointment stages of your visits to our clinic. This gives them a long period in which to get used to the idea and ask questions. Such questions as the specifics of the procedure, what happens after, how long they stay in the hospital, all the way through to their personal items and what food they’ll eat can be points of concern for some children.
The biggest fears and stresses for children come from the uncertainty of anesthesia and pain, frankly this is still quite an uncomfortable feeling for most adults too. Explaining that the staff and your child’s surgeons are experts in their field and they will provide medicine to stop pains and help them wake up feeling better is far easier to bring up, rather than to get tied up in the fact it may hurt. This is more likely to upset your child, especially if he or she is younger, so it’s usually better to avoid negative statements and phrasing things in an age-appropriate way.
At Brooks Plastic Surgery, we understand every child is different and it is up to you as a parent what you think your child can and can’t comprehend. We are here to support you, advise and care for you and your family during the procedure and through the aftercare procedure.
A parent, guardian or family member is always welcome to stay close by during a pediatric hospital stay and we try to be accommodating in visiting hours to fit around work schedules and other commitments. All our staff are trained to care and deal with children and they try to make the environment as fun and as caring as possible. Call us today for your consultation!
