“Can you breathe on your own during general anesthesia?”

Yes and no. It depends on what is needed for the surgery. Sometimes the surgeon needs your muscles to be relaxed to facilitate the surgery. In this case, a ventilator breathes for you. Other times you breathe on your own or with slight assistance from the ventilator.


"Artists are the people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide." -Donald Woods Winnicott

It is possible to maintain the ability to breathe on your own during general anesthesia. However, adequate protective airway reflexes are considered at risk of being inadequate which can lead to obstruction, laryngospasm or simply inadequate minute ventilation. As a result, it is prudent an anesthesiologist is present for patients under general anesthesia to account for preemptively securing a patent airway or being capable of rescuing a patient's airway in the event of adverse events.