[Generous use of opioids is advantageous for infants and children--Contra].

Opioids are important as medication against postoperative pain in infants and children too. However, intraoperatively given opioids increase the analgesic demand in the postoperative period without an improvement of the postoperative pain. Nausea, vomiting, respiratory depression and gastroparesis develop. The apparent benefit of a stable anaesthetic has to be bought with relevant drawbacks. Modern concepts heavily rely on local anaesthetics and nonsteroidals for postoperative analgesia.