Postoperative Management

Support Your Child’s Healing Journey

After surgery, keeping a close eye on your child’s recovery is essential. Monitoring for any changes at the surgical site or in your child's overall health, as well as staying in touch with your care team, can help to catch potential issues early and to receive treatment right away. Call your care manager if you have any additional questions or concerns after your visit.

Signs and Symptoms of Infection

When your child is recovering from surgery, the chance for infection is always present. This information will help you be aware of the signs and symptoms of infection and what to do if they occur.

Redness and swelling around the incision line.
Drainage from the incision. Drainage may be yellow, green or a large amount of bright red.
Hot incision. The skin around the incision may be hot to the touch. Compare it with skin temperature away from the incision line.
Pain. The incision may be tender to the touch.
Temperature of 101° F or more, along with any of the listed symptoms, could be a sign of a wound infection.
Tired. Feeling tired and having little energy is common after surgery. Each day your child should feel a little better. It is common with an infection to feel better for a few days and then begin to feel tired and sluggish.

Please call your care manager if you have any questions or concerns.

Before Discharge

Look at the incision and dressing. This will give you a baseline to compare with when you and your child are at home.
Look at the dressing/incision area daily for the first few weeks after surgery to check for signs of infection.
Know your home-care instructions.

Incision Care

You will receive specific discharge instructions regarding incision care and changing/removing the dressing.

Personal Care

You will receive specific discharge instructions regarding bathing/showering before you leave the surgery center.

Comfort Measures to Ease Pain

Shriners Children’s is committed to reducing the pain and anxiety that children may experience. We believe your child has the right to the best pain relief possible. Since you know your child best, you can help us understand when your child is in pain. We will use pain-rating scales appropriate to your child’s level of development, which will guide us in providing adequate pain relief, and we will make every effort to keep your child comfortable and to minimize pain.

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Parent Responsibilities

Ask the doctors and nurses how much pain to expect and how long it should last.
Talk to the doctors and nurses about pain control measures that have or have not worked for your child in the past.
Encourage your child to tell you or the nurse if they are in pain. If you think the pain is getting worse, tell us so it can be addressed quickly.
Keep a list of any questions that you would like to ask your child’s doctor or nurse.
Work with the anesthesiologist or surgeon to develop a pain management plan.

Prior to surgery, a recreational therapist can provide your child with an age-appropriate educational preoperative teaching session, medical play opportunities and a tour of the surgical areas. A recreational therapist will also see your child the day of surgery for support and distraction-play opportunities.

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Techniques to Comfort Your Child

Infants: rapid patting, massage, singing, music, rocking, wrapping in a blanket, pacifiers.
Toddlers: cuddling, rocking, bubble blowing, music, massage, reading stories, toys.
Preschoolers: bubble blowing, talking, storytelling, watching videos, noisy toys, pop-up books, letting the child rehearse the procedure in advance.
School-age: deep breathing, handheld video games, books, massage, storytelling, music, imagining a special place, watching videos, television.
Adolescents: deep breathing, muscle contraction and relaxation, music, imagining a special place, watching videos and television.
Items from home, depending on the age of the child, also help provide comfort (i.e. blanket, pillow, pajamas, music, videos, and other small items from home such as pictures of family or a good friend).

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Ways to Help Manage Pain

With Medication:

Pill or liquid taken by mouth.
Medication through a small tube placed in a vein (called IV).
A special cream may be placed on the skin prior to IV insertion.

Without Medication:

Deep breathing: A nurse or therapist can teach your child this by asking them to breathe out, and let go of the tension with each breath. They will breathe in deeply and slowly and count to five before they breathe out. Younger children may be taught to breathe deeply by blowing bubbles or using a pinwheel.
Distraction: Talking, video games, movies, pop-up books, TV, music and being read to.
Imagination: Thinking about a pleasant, familiar activity can help. This is called guided imagery. We can use suggestions for pain relief such as, “Let the pain just drain away and out of your body.” This can help to make your child more calm and relaxed.
Rest: Dim the lights, reduce the noise, soft music, soft touch or massage.
Change position: Use pillows, turn, sit up in the bed or a chair. Ask your nurse or therapist to teach you more about these methods to decrease pain.

Call your care manager if you have any questions about comfort measures or pain.

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We Understand the Unique Medical Needs of Children

We provide vital, pioneering treatment from birth to age 18. Here, children have the opportunity to be evaluated and treated by doctors recognized as the best by their peers.