Fasting recommendations
Now this is when things can become a little bit more complicated. Unfortunately, fasting recommendations are not always textbook. Timings can be influenced by many variable factors including patient age, weight and other health issues such as diabetes. For instance, in very young puppies and kittens, it is recommended to withhold food for no longer than 1-2 hours before surgery.
Previously, many recommendations suggested starving your healthy dog or cat for approximately 12 hours before surgery. A common practice protocol is to advise that owner’s starve their dog or cat from midnight. This generally leads to a 12 hour starvation period (or sometimes longer depending on the theatre list and when they’re actually going to be in theatre) before their surgical procedure. However, there is little evidence based medicine to support this guideline. Practically, this guideline is relatively easy for owners to adhere to. Most pets will be fed their normal evening meal and then will remain ‘nil by mouth’ after this.
Do I need to withhold water?
Again, there is a slight variability between water withholding protocols. Mostresearch now suggests that in healthy and young patients, water does not need to be withheld prior to surgery (Grubb, 2020). Robertson (2018) states that water should be available to patients until the time of premedication. Some practices do still advise removing water from patients 1-2 hours before the time of surgery. Furthermore, it is recommended that dogs who are at a higher risk of regurgitation or have a known history of regurgitation have their water withheld for 6-12 hours (Grubb, 2020).
Your veterinary practice will always instruct you on whether you need to withhold water from your pet.
Conclusion:
There is definitely food for thought here, excuse the pun! Although interestingly, there are discrepancies amongst the literature with regards to the ideal fasting duration pre-surgery, the overall modern consensus appears that the fasting duration leading up to surgery has decreased (Grubb et al, 2020). With new evidence emerging within both the Veterinary and human field, watch this space!