After children’s brain surgery

Straight after the operation, the surgical team takes your child to the recovery unit. This is where children are closely monitored after any type of operation or anaesthetic.

Once it’s safe to do so, your child will move to the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) or high dependency unit (HDU).

This information covers immediately after and the first few days after surgery for a brain tumour.

Find out about longer term recovery after brain surgery

Tubes and drains

All the tubes can be a bit frightening. But it might help to know what all the tubes are for. Not every child has all these. And some don’t stay in for long. They might include some or all of the following:

Oxygen

Once they're off the ventilator, your child might have a small oxygen mask over their mouth and nose. It gives them extra oxygen and gently ties around their head to help it stay in place. Lots of children don’t like wearing oxygen masks. They often try to take it off when they wake up. It’s important it stays on, and the nurses and play specialists will help your child keep it on.

Drips (IVs – intravenous infusions)

Drips going into the bloodstream might include medicines, blood transfusions, and fluids until your child can drink or eat again. Children often return to PICU or HDU with a central line if they didn’t have one before they went to theatre. Or they might have a small tube in the vein called a cannula. Generally, these are in the hands, crook of the arm or feet. They’re wrapped up in a soft bandage, so it’s more difficult for your child to knock or pull them out.

A tube into an artery

This might be in your child’s arm, or the top of the leg by the groin. It’s for taking blood samples and accurately measuring their blood pressure.

Drains

Your child might have one or more drains coming out of their wound (connected to bags) to drain blood and tissue fluid from the operation site. Among the tubes coming out of their head bandages, there may be a drain called an external ventricular drain (EVD). This drains excess fluid from the brain to stop the fluid building up (hydrocephalus).

A tube into their bladder (urinary catheter)

This is so that they can wee and means the nurses can accurately measure how much urine they are producing. This helps the team make sure they are not getting too much or too little fluid.

A tube from their nose into their stomach (nasogastric tube)

This tube is taped with a plaster to your child’s cheek. It’s to help stop them feeling sick. Or they can have liquid food though the tube.

An intracranial pressure (ICP) monitor

This is a tube from their head which is connected to a machine. It measures the pressure inside your child’s head.

What next?

You might want to read our information about recovering after brain surgery next.

Read more here