Losing speech after giving birth...

[Rubysmommy]

Hi all
I gave birth to a healthy girl in the afternoon and all was good.
By the night time I had a headache, thought nothing of it.
By 4am the next day I felt strange (can't describe it any better than that!) and panicked changing her nappy and couldnt find things (when I did find them they were right in front of me!).
My husband arrived at 9am and noticed something wasnt right but thought I just needed sleep. So I got my head down.
My memory from then is quite patchy - I can remember a Dr talking to me and asking questions like, 'what day is it?' and checking my reflexes etc. I answered all the questions but my answers were coming out muddled, eg who is the prime minister? I answered Cameron Ameron!! I just slept all day and just woke to feed my baby.
Thankfully they let my husband stay with me to care for our baby because I wasn't in any state to look after her.
By the next morning, I was back to normal....
The Dr's never told me what was wrong/why it happened. they ruled out a stroke - thank god!
Just wondered if anyone else experienced this?
I'm a bit worried about going through it again after our next child is born...especially because they don't know what caused it.

Has anyone else had lll

I should add that the birth was problem free and was only in labour for about 8 hours. I'm not frightened of giving birth again. just worried about what might happen afterwards...

This might sound a bit strange, but maybe it could have been a migraine. My mum had her first migraine soon after her first babies (twins) were born. The sudden hormonal changes can trigger it. And it wasn't like a normal one- the headache part wasn't the main thing. She felt strange, had visual disturbances and her speech was a bit slurred. I think you can get a very weird kind of migraine that's triggered by shock, like the physical shock to your body of giving birth. It's your mention of a headache that makes me think of it. It can also be a one off thing, you wouldn't necessarily go on to have 'normal' migraines regularly afterwards. It might be worth asking about again when you're considering number 2, or sooner while the doctors' memories are fresh, though to be honest, the best person to ask would be the neurologist who ruled out a stroke I'd say. I doubt you'll get any definite answers but at least they might have some opinions about what it could have been. A GP or someone like that probably wouldn't have much of a clue. I think the main thing is that once they ruled out a stroke, you can reassure yourself that whatever it was was scary but not dangerous, so wouldn't worry too much about it for next time. Congrats!

Thanks Sioda - you may be right, while I was on the Oestrogen only pill I suffered from migraines so they put me on the progesterone pill instead. Like you said, how I felt after birth wasn't like my normal migraines but I suppose the hormone levels are all over the place.
At least it's not just me! fingers crossed it was a one off!

It could have been a transient ischemic attack (TIA), where blood flow to part of the brain is interrupted. It has effects like a stroke - confusion, speech problems, sometimes physical weakness - but the effects wear off after and few hours and there usually isn't any permanent damage. I had something similar to you years ago - weak right side, weird speech, confusion, and the doctors reckoned it might be a TIA but it's very hard to diagnose because it doesn't have any permanent effects. Have you ever had issues with your heart? Physical stress can bring on a TIA due to your heart being under pressure and developing a slightly irregular heartbeat.

The doctors didn't seem too concerned about the possibility of it being a TIA btw - they said if I was older they would need to monitor me in case I was in danger of a stroke but as I'm young it's likely it was just a one-off event. Of course if it ever happened again I would then need more tests but I've never had any problems since.

Not after birth, but during labour with DS (my first) I lost the ability to speak or understand. Everything everyone said sounded like gibberish or as if the words were all in the wrong order or something or I couldn't hold the meaning of the sentence in my head long enough to understand it. IYSWIM? Also I couldn't speak, it all came out as nonsense. Don't know why, until I had DD I'd just thought it was cos the labour was fast and intense but then she was born even faster and it didn't happen with her......