If you ate before surgery, the main concern is that food in your stomach can come back up and get into your airway or lungs during anesthesia. That can cause choking, lung injury, or other serious breathing problems. Because of this, no one can be assumed to have a completely empty stomach, and the anesthesia team may treat you as higher risk if you did not fast long enough.

Typical fasting times are 6 hours for solids and 2 hours for clear liquids for adults, and some clear liquids may be allowed up to 2 hours before anesthesia. If the stomach is not empty, the team may use full-stomach precautions, which are steps to lower the chance of aspiration, or they may postpone the procedure. Verify the exact plan with your surgical or anesthesia team in case they want something different for you.