The next time before you signing the dotted lines for administering anesthesia to your kid, think twice before doing so as a study has revealed that exposure to anesthesia more than once before the age of three appears to significantly increase a person’s risk of developing learning disabilities in childhood.

According to a study conducted by researchers from the Mayo Medical School and published in the journal Anesthesiology, exposure to anesthesia more than once before the age of three can be dangerous.

The researchers examined the medical records of all children born in one of five towns in Olmstead County, Minn in US between the years of 1976 and 1982. They compared data on anesthesia exposure before the age of three and the diagnosis of a learning disability before the age of 19 in the 5,357 of these children who had lived in Olmstead County until at least the age of five.

Among children who had been exposed to anesthesia once before the age of three, the risk of learning abilities was the same as among children who had never been exposed. Two anesthesia exposures, however, increased the risk of learning disabilities by 59 percent, while three or more exposures increased the risk by 160 percent.

This is the first study to directly demonstrate a connection between early anesthesia exposure and learning disabilities in humans. Prior human studies have shown connections between early surgeries and the later development of developmental or behavioural problems.