Hi All, I am hoping you might be able to help me or know another mum who might be able to provide some information. I have been doing a lot of research (when I can) over the last 13 years on the affects of Ventouse Delivery. My son was born this way in 2000. My health visitor at the time advised me after his delivery that he may be slow to crawl, slow to talk, walk, feed and may have learning difficulties or just generally be a bit slower than his peers. At the time I was not aware of any issue surrounding the way he was delivered, but it was only as the years passed that the Health Visitor's warning came to be true as each milestone was passed and he did not improve. My son is now 13 and every warning she provided me is my son. He is in a main stream school but has had a statement since 2010 and has constant TA assistance. Now I'm not saying that he wouldn't have been like this had his birth been less traumatic, but doing the research I have and reading of other peoples experiences it seems there may be a link to this delivery method. In all other ways my son is great, polite, friendly, helpful, but very immature, concentration very poor and just generally a struggle for him to catch up. A recent review at the school had his reading as age 10! I would therefore be very grateful if you could let me know whether your teenage son/daughter sounds like my son and whether the delivery method was Ventouse. Many thanks.
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Hi Mandy,
I was just trying to find some research on epilepsy and ventouse this morning and came across your post.
My 9yr old Ds was diagnosed with epilepsy a year last Jan and he morse I think about it, the more I think it was caused by Ventouse. However, there is very little research on this and his neurologist doesn't know of any significant correlations.
As a walking baby, he used to regularly bang his head on walls as though he had a sore head and now, he has ictal headaches most weeks. Although he has been seizure free for over a year, he is still feeling the effects of epileptic activity......ictal headaches after watching the whiteboard at school or watching screens etc....although he doesn't have seizures brought on by photosensitivity.
A a newborn, he couldn't sleep or lie on his back without crying so I put him to sleep on me or on his side. Then he had cranial osteopathy and it helped. He has recently been diagnosed with a Selective Eating Disorder, which he has had since weaning.
We are off for a check up with neurology this afternoon due to worrying behaviour and two recent suicide intent incidents.....tricky to work out if attention seeking or meaning to actually do it....
I believe his behaviour probs are linked to the hippocampal sclerosis they say he has on his left side. Such a massive topic to research and way beyond my psych/health diploma!
telephone please tell us what your useless silent skill is...or pm me 
I think, and you see this with anti-vaccination threads, we, as parents, look for causes to our children's behaviours and needs when, sometimes, the kids are who they are, without a known or underlying cause.
I could, for example, put my dc2's behaviour down to too much TV (and could well be right) or her clumsiness down to an undiagnosed eye problem (they cannot test her yet). I would think it reasonable that any oxygen deprivation during a complicated birth would be more likely to cause any future learning difficulties than the ventouse itself.
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