Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Every spring you can see newborn foals running on fields among the mare. But some unfortunate end up visiting the equine hospital requiring surgery. This is a challenge for the anesthetist because of the neonatal foal’s unique physiology. Therefore you need to take these differences under consideration when you anesthetize foals. You need to use equipment that fits your patient, use drugs that the foal can handle and you need to know about the differences between the adult horse and the neonatal foal and how anesthesia affects them differently.

This essay will process the primary physiological differences between the adult horse and the neonatal foals and what you as an anesthetist must take under consideration during anesthesia. The neonatal foal is predisposed to both hypoglycemia due to poor stores of glycogen and hypothermia that the adult horses rarely will be affected by. The risks of hypoxia due to poor ventilation or hypoxemia due to reopening of the cardiovascular shunts from previous fetal circulation are more likely to affect the neonatal foal rather than the adult horse. Foals are also more sensitive to changes in carbon-dioxide and arterial oxygen pressure than adult horses because of their undeveloped sympathetic nervous system. Another difference of great importance that separates adults and neonates is the ability to handle a possible hypovolemia or hypotension were the foals cannot handle this as well as the adult horse because of the lack of capacity to increase cardiac output and their incapability to create vasoconstriction.

The essay also studies how anesthesia distinguishes between the neonatal foal and the adult horse. For a safer anesthesia it is of great importance to monitor both the glucose level and temperature in the neonatal foal. It is also important to use drugs that are suitable for foals and be aware that the foal reacts differently to drugs than the adult horse. This is because of the neonatal foal’s undeveloped body systems like undeveloped liver and kidneys but it is also important to considerate the fact that foal has a lower fat amount in combination to low protein in the bloodstream which makes them particularly sensitive to some drugs. Furthermore the essay also process how the recovery of the neonatal foals should be managed.

This is a literature study were I have gathered existing information about the topic and presented the state of art in the field.