Must-Known Special Considerations for Acute Pain Management in Pediatric Patient Population

The advent of ultrasound had led to a significant improvement in the safety profile for regional anesthetic techniques, resulting in the increasing popularity of these approaches. This has been especially true in the field of pediatric anesthesia where peripheral nerve block techniques performed using landmark approaches were associated with more complications and were less dependable. With ultrasonography, the routine use of peripheral nerve blocks which were once considered dangerous in children has become commonplace. However, the anesthesiologist’s adage of “children are not little adults” holds true for regional anesthesia techniques. Therefore, this chapter discusses a multitude of truncal, upper extremity, and lower extremity blocks, used in pediatric regional anesthesia, with a particular focus on the special considerations that the anesthesiologist must take into account when treating this patient population.