Five Important Tips regarding care after Hernia Surgery in Children

Inguinal Hernia is a fairly common problem in children. It may occur in 10% of the children. However, in different populations, its incidence is different.

Regarding the treatment of inguinal hernia, the only option available is surgery. The surgery for inguinal hernia is called “Inguinal Herniotomy.” Usually, most Pediatric surgeons recommend the surgery at the earliest possible age.

As in children, surgery is a major source of worry among parents. Therefore, parents need to understand all aspects of surgery before making a decision.

After surgery of hernia, the care of the child is also an important issue. Here, in this section, we will discuss the parents’ five most important concerns regarding aftercare.

1. Care of wound:

Wounds after surgery may be of many types. When we categorize these wounds, we consider the dirtiness of the situation. The hernia wounds in both adults and children are clean. Therefore we call them “Clean Wounds.”

Clean wounds usually heal easily. There are very few chances (less than 1%) of wound infection in this category. Therefore, we don’t recommend any special care for these wounds.

The care of this wound is straightforward. You can keep it clean with a simple dressing. It would be best if you change this dressing every two days. Also, open the dressing and clean the wound with Spirit. Then give it 40 to 60 seconds and let it dry. After that, do the dressing again, which your doctor has prescribed.

Some surgeons keep this wound open and advise no dressing at all. This approach is also good and has no issues.

2.Daily activities:

In children, parents are usually very anxious regarding the daily activities of children. As children are curious by nature, so they roam in the whole of the house. Parents usually try to keep them in a room.

Frankly, we don’t ask parents to hold daily activities for children. Rather, we advise to let them play. Their routine activities have no impact on the wound. However, stressful activities like cycling, weight lifting, stair-climbing, and jumping need to be avoided. As wound healing is a long process, they need to avoid these activities for at least 3-weeks after surgery.

3. When to give bath to the child:

There is a powerful myth that

“water causes wound infection.”

This is just a myth and not a reality. Many parents avoid water on the wound for months even. You can give a bath to your child after 3-days of the surgery. You should give a bath to your child and keep him clean. This will help in rapid wound healing and decrease the chances of infection.

4. What medications to give to the child:

As previously mentioned, this is a “clean wound.” For this wound, we don’t recommend any antibiotics. Studies have proven that antibiotics have no impact on wound healing in this type of wound. Therefore, we don’t advise antibiotics.

However, the child will feel some pain after surgery. Therefore, we advise oral pain killers regularly after this surgery. Generally, surgeons advise Paracetamol or Ibuprofen (depending upon the OTC medications). These pain killers are usually enough to control pain in children.

5. When to call the doctor urgently?

Usually, children heal without any difficulty after this surgery. They do not face any problem in 99% of the cases. However, there are few red-flag signs which parents must know. If you face any of the followings, call your doctor:

• Redness of the wound

• Pus oozing out from the wound

• High-grade fever (Temperature more than 39C/102F) to the child within 7-days after surgery

• Excessive and continuous bleeding from the wound

• Child not being able to pass urine after surgery

• Child having vomiting along with pain in the tummy, within 24 hours after surgery.