Keywords: learning disabilities, anesthesia, education, Mayo Clinic, healthcare, people with disabilities, disability, health

A new study suggests that children who undergo general anesthesia multiple times in their first four years may be at higher risk for learning disabilities, reports NPR. The study, by Dr. Robert Wilder, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic, was conducted after research on baby rats and other young animals suggested that exposure to general anesthesia at a very young age kills brain cells.

Wilder analyzed data on more than 5,000 children who had been treated in Olmsted County, Minn. About 600 of those children had one or more surgeries involving general anesthesia, ranging from routine operations to remove tonsils to serious procedures like open-heart surgery. While young children who had only a single operation with general anesthesia were at no more risk for learning disabilities than other children, the risk increased one-and-a-half times for kids who had undergone two surgeries with anesthesia. Wilder found that 50 percent of kids who had three or more surgeries with general anesthesia later developed learning disabilities.

Wilder believes that general anesthesia may affect young children because it reaches the brain at a time of rapid development.

Click here to read the full story on NPR.org.

Click here to read "Want to Reach a Trillion-Dollar Market? Don't Ignore People With Disabilities" on DiversityInc.com.