Baby MRI

[NCPuffin]

Our 7 week old baby is having an MRI at Birmingham children's hospital tomorrow as he had a suspected seizure at 8 days. We have been given very little information about what to expect so I was wondering if anyone could share their experiences.

I don’t know anything about baby MRIs, only adult, but he’s in excellent hands, it’s a great hospital. I hope someone will come along very soon to help you ❤️

Ours had one. We had the choice of sedating him or doing him when he was asleep. I spent ages getting him to sleep then they woke him up putting him on the trolley thing that stops them moving about. So I got him to sleep again but the technicians woke him up again! And repeat, a couple more times. When it was all ready and he was asleep they put a lead apron on my and let me stand next to him. And it took a couple of minutes and all was fine. He was 7 months at the time.

So, I don’t know what happens if they sedate the baby for it, but they gave us a choice and I chose not to sedate.

Sorry you're having to go through this. At that age i'd say get to get him asleep.

My darling boy slept through one at months old, as a toddler he needs GA and although I know it's safe, he's I good hands bla bla bla it was horrific watching him go under do quickly.

Take care x

Good luck :) One of my twins had to have one and I never believed in a million years that he’d fall asleep and stay asleep but he did. They used the “feed and wrap” technique. They swaddled him tightly then left me in the dark in a room adjacent to the scan room to feed him and rock him, then once he was asleep I carried him (still tightly swaddled) to the bed part of the machine. I was allowed to stay in the room whilst he was scanned and I held the emergency buzzer so I could stop the process had I felt the need to. They are watching your baby on the video screen though so they’ll know if he wakes/gets distressed. You don’t need to worry about monitoring him yourself. They are very experienced with the whole process and scan babies in this way all the time, so they’ll look after you both. They said to me that had they not got the images that day they’d have tried to do another scan another day with feed and wrap, sedation would have been last resort as feed and wrap can be so successful when still that young. My son was around same age as yours. Good luck xx

I don’t have any experience with MRIs but I just wanted to say that you’ll be in excellent hands at Birmingham Children’s. I was treated there as a child for absence seizures and they were wonderful.

I hope all goes well tomorrow x

My dd had an mri at 12 hours old after seizures. They just wrapped her up after a feed and she slept through. They let me stay in the room with her too. Hope all goes well

Ds had an mri at 6 months old. We had a cheap ring sling wil plastic rings that he was cuddled into and fed in until he fell asleep then moved him to the bed in. He needed a brain mri as he was having seizures and had been diagnosed with suspected encephalitis. It took about 45 minutes for them to get the images they needed once he was alseep. They took the most important ones first and saved the loudest until the end. We both had to wear large over the ear ear protectors. It still sounded very loud. I was able to stay with him and practicality half crawled into the scanner with him to keep hold of his foot.

Practically the room was fairly dark. Was checked for metal on my clothes but was told bra fastening didn't mater but it might ping a little, I noticed nothing. He slept through the whole thing.

If his being sedated he'll be in the kidest hands possiable. I have a friend who helped with sedation for mri scanning. If ds hadn't managed his mri we'd have needed to move a children's hospital to have it done and she came in from scbu to tell me how well he'd be looked after if it came to that. She promised he'd be wrapped up warm and would have eyes on him at all times and told me how they always held little hands whenever possible.

I hope things go well tomorrow. Ds has since been diagnosed with epilepsy and takes meds daily. He is lively two year old who charges head first into anything and everything who shows no signs of the drowsineness most meds are supposed to bring.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. The appointment letter says he'll be sedated, but I am hoping that's a standard letter and we might be able to do feed and wrap (the GOSH website has useful info, which I found after starting this thread). I don't think we'll be allowed in the treatment room, as having had seizures in the past is a reason parents aren't allowed in according to the questionnaire that came with the letter.

It's making me quite emotional, it's bringing back memories of when he was in SCBU, which was the hardest time of my life. He was admitted for something else and had a seizure as we were discussing discharge and ended up staying another 6 days, including an ambulance trip to a different hospital for an EEG.

I am expressing lots of milk so he can have a bottle afterwards in case he's too sleepy to latch on and I'm going to pack his nicest outfits and his favourite blanket.

Dobby, cross post. The nurses on SCBU (our local hospital) were amazing, I will be forever grateful to them for looking after our baby so well, but also for caring for us. I really hope they'll be as nice at Birmingham. The doctor who did the EEG kept clucking his tongue at him, which I hated, he's not a horse! That wasn't a paediatric specialist though.