Background Pierre Robin Sequence (PRS) patients are known for their triad of micrognathia, glossoptosis, and airway obstruction. Their airway can be a challenge even for the most experienced pediatric anesthesiologist. Case presentation We report the case of a 9 day old 3.5 kg boy diagnosed with PRS, cleft palate, and a vallecular cyst with severe upper airway obstruction. The combination of PRS, cleft palate and the presence of vallecular cyst made this a cascade reaction of difficult airway. Due to his unique anatomy, we didn’t appreciate how difficult his airway was until multiple attempts with high-tech equipment failed. Ultimately it was the finger guide intubation, this old technique without any equipment, that rescued this patient from lose of airway. Conclusions The boy was successfully rescued by finger guided intubation. Finger guide intubation should be added to the anesthesiologist’s newborn rescue intubation training.

In order to solve the stress problem in laparoscopic hiatal hernia repair of children, improve surgical safety, and reduce surgical risk, this study compared the perioperative changes of epinephrine, norepinephrine, IL-6, IL-10, and hemodynamics in children undergoing laparoscopic surgery under intravenous general anesthesia and general anesthesia combined with an epidural block. In this study, 40 children aged 1–3 years who planned to undergo laparoscopic ortopexy and those who planned to undergo laparoscopic high ligation of hernia sac, aged 23.84 1.6 months and weighed 14.9 1.1 kg, were randomly divided into general anesthesia combined with the epidural block group (group A) and a total intravenous anesthesia group (group B), with 20 subjects in each group. The results are as follows: There were no differences in age, gender, body weight, anesthesia time, pneumoperitoneum duration, and functional time between the two groups. Cytokines: Compared with T0, the levels of IL-6 in T2, T3, T4, and T5 groups were significantly increased ( P  < 0.01). IL-10 levels: T2, T3, T4, and T5 groups were further increased, and the difference was statistically significant compared with T0 ( P  < 0.01). There was no difference between groups ( P  > 0.05). The recovery time in group B was shorter than that in group A ( P  < 0.01), and the total amount of propofol and fentanyl in group B was less than that in group A ( P  < 0.01). Through research on intravenous anesthesia treatment, it has been proved that total intravenous anesthesia can relieve perioperative pressure, reduce intravenous injection, and reduce the recovery time of children. However, its effect on cytokines is not obvious, so intravenous anesthesia is the most appropriate anesthesia mode in laparoscopic hiatal hernia repair surgery, which has practical significance.