Blows to DC's head

[Chewingbubblegum]

Would really value views on this. My son is 7 and during the course of his 7 years he has had a number of bumps and blows to his head - hit in the head by another child accidentally with a bat (twice, different kids, different events), falling and banging his head (several times), bumping into things, etc.

I'm really worried that he might develop serious problems in the future because of these incidents and that they may take years to manifest. There isn't anything obviously wrong with him but I can't but worry if there is damage there that will show up sooner or later.

I reckon most kids have a similar history so don't think it's likely to do any real harm. With boxers, footballers etc it's far more regular and higher impact. My ds used to headbang and it was awful so I sometimes worries about this but hvs said he wouldn't be doing any damage.

My brother had constant knocks to the head, cricket bats, falls, mum jokes she was in a and e nearly every weekend . No lasting effects, superbly intelligent and academic ( unlike me) only thing is he can't have his hair cut super short as all the scars on his head show.( had stitches several times!)

It's unlikely those events will cause any future damage. But even if it does there is nothing that can be done about it now. The type of head injuries that are causing American Footballers to suffer illnesses in their early retirement are far more regular than a few childhood bumps.

Unless he’s been regularly concussed or lost consciousness I don’t think you need to worry. Heads can take a fair bit of knocking around and all kids tend to give them a good test run at various points.

Thank you so much for your reassuring posts. I'll share them with my husband who is equally worried about the bangs and blows to the head. He has never been concussed. He is definitely giving his head a good test run.

Repeated concussions are what cause lasting damage and why American footballers often have problems later in life.
He can't have been hit hard enough to cause any lasting affects.

A bang on the head isn't necessarily a problem.
The problems come when there is a sudden deceleration, which causes the brain to impact inside the skull.
Fewer than 10% of concussion results in loss of consciousness.

TheRuby, so how would I know if his brain decelerated if there was no loss of consciousness? What would be the symptoms / signs?

Headache, confusion, dizziness, vomiting, change in behaviour like very unsettled and wobbly. You would have noticed if something wasn't right.

bjsports-2017-097492childscat5.full .PDF

I really hope that link works.

As has been said, you would have noticed symptoms.
The deceleration I mentioned. Imagine a rugby player going into a tackle, if he gets his technique wrong, he will have head impact and his body stops very suddenly but because of the head impact, his brain impacts inside the skull.

Put a ping pong ball into a jam jar of water and shake.

Some are very unlucky and have many failed HIAs. I played for 20 odd years and had 1.