• Local anesthesia
  Local anesthesia is medication given to temporarily stop the sensation in a particular area of the body. Your child remains conscious during a local anesthetic. For minor surgery, a local anesthetic can be administered via injection. However, when a large area needs to be numbed, or if a local anesthetic injection will not penetrate deep enough, your child's physician may use regional anesthetics.

• Regional anesthesia
  Regional anesthesia means numbing only the portion of the body which will be operated on. Usually an injection of local anesthetic is given in the area of nerves that provide feeling to that part of the body. There are several forms of regional anesthetics, two of which are described below:

• Spinal anesthetic
  A spinal anesthetic is often used for lower abdominal, pelvic, rectal, or lower extremity surgery. This type of anesthetic involves injecting a single dose of the anesthetic agent directly into the fluid surrounding the spinal cord in the lower back, causing numbness in the lower body.

• Epidural anesthetic
  This anesthetic is similar to a spinal anesthetic and also is commonly used for surgery of the lower limbs and during labor and childbirth. This type of anesthesia involves continually infusing medication through a thin catheter that has been placed into the epidural space of the spinal column in the lower back, causing numbness in the lower body. 

• General anesthesia
  General anesthesia causes a patient to be unconscious during surgery. The medication is either inhaled through a breathing mask or tube, or administered through an intravenous (IV) line - a thin plastic tube inserted into a vein. A breathing tube may be inserted into the windpipe to maintain proper breathing during surgery.