cerebral palsy risk

[AtLastEarwax]

Hi all

So my 3yo goes to pre school with another 3yo and I've become quite friendly with mum. She told me during lockdown that her child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy - limping was the first sign and after a few months as it got more noticeable she finally went to the doctors. The doctor said it was because of bleeding during pregnancy. She had bleeding AND an infection when she was pregnant.

Now though I am worried. With my son I bled a little, spotted here and there. With my twins I bled ALOT. With every pregnancy (I had a miscarriages - one singleton and one triplets) I have had haematomas that have either absorbed or bled out. Never infections. The only time I've been prescribed anything whilst pregnant is for thrush once with the twins

Is the cerebral palsy risk higher because of the infection she had or the bleeding?? Should I be looking for symptoms?

Any insight would be great

if you have not noticed anything by now even in the very unlikely event he does have it.It will be so mild he wont even notice .You dont need to ask a doctor unless it has some sort of effect on his life.

CP is there from birth so as PP says you would almost certainly have noticed something by now - most likely delay in meeting physical milestones, wobbliness or clumsiness, poor fine motor skills, falling over much more than others.

Many many women have bleeding in pregnancy and it doesn’t result in CP. I presume there must have been something else with your friend underlying the bleeding, such as placental abruption for example.

Basically to get CP there needs to have been an interruption of oxygen to the brain during pregnancy or birth. Just a bleed wouldn’t do it, unless the bleed is a symptom of something more like an abruption or a stroke which could cause lack of oxygen to the baby.

Hope that makes sense. Please don’t worry.

CP tends to be caused by a deprivation of oxygen at birth op. My daughter was at risk as she had a brain bleed and was resuscitated when she was born. I was told the first sign would be missing milestones.

Kids with CP will have issues with the use of one or more limbs. Honestly by 3 you would have noticed.

Getting dx with CP unexpectedly at 3 is seriously unusual. It wouldn’t be quite so unusual to have gone through 3 years of ‘global developmental delay’ or physio/ OT/ SLT and then ultimately have the dx refined to mild hemiplegia or whatever.
An out of the blue sudden development of a limp or developmental issue at 3 that spontaneously results in a CP dx? Nah.
Dd was dx just before she was 2. But she spent 6 weeks in special care and had a full set of therapists for those full two years, and at least 3 medical appointments a week.
Do you have developmental concerns over any of your children? Are they missing milestones? Rolling, sitting, crawling, walking, speech?
They are sometimes coy to label CP quickly if delays are super mild and could be that the child grows out of, but the interim working label of GDD or delays would absolutely have been discussed.

nachthexe Actually my DD was diagnosed fairly unexpectedly at 3. No discussion of GDD as she just about met her milestones on time albeit in a wobbly way, and no physio or other HCP involvement. She had however been born prematurely, had been resuscitated at birth, had 3 weeks in SCBU and had always been wobbly. So it wasn’t a huge surprise and didn’t come out of nowhere. Her limp didn’t develop suddenly but it wasn’t before age 3 that we could tell it was a limp rather than just still learning to walk iyswim.

She is very much at the mild end of the CP scale and tbh had we not gone private I am not sure she would have been diagnosed. The private diagnosis is clear though as the damage shows on the MRI. It will be very unusual for this to happen as you say, but it can happen.

My friend said that it was when she learned to walk she was limping. She thought it was because she was wearing shoes from primark etc so she went to Clarks and she still limped. After 6m she went to the doctors and had an MRI.

I think the infection part is where a lack of oxygen may have happened. She said that the doctor said that anyone who experiences bleeding has it - hence why I was worried.

She told me that she doesn't know how to tell people, she doesn't want to announce it on Facebook. I said bloody hell, it's your business! If you don't want to put it on Facebook then don't! I am however anti-social media but even so I felt sad that she said that, the pressure of social media to tell people about her child is silly - slightly off topic 😬

@BilboBercow Actually deprivation of oxygen at birth is one of the rarer causes of cerebral palsy.

The most common cause is something happening during pregnancy - infection, a stroke or other bleeding into the babies brain.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/cerebral-palsy/causes/

I think as a society we are conditioned to blame delivery but actually the causes often happen long before.

Is there any particular place that you found the best information on cerebral palsy?

My little guy was deprived of oxygen at birth and will have to live with it forever. We're considering a legal action but I don't know enough about it.

@PatrickSmithUS

Is there any particular place that you found the best information on cerebral palsy?

My little guy was deprived of oxygen at birth and will have to live with it forever. We're considering a legal action but I don't know enough about it.

I'm so sorry to hear this, I hope you can find some resolve. Stay safe xoxoxo