Could car accident 4 days before dd was born have caused her sn????

[Blossomhill]

I have been thinking a lot lately about the car accident I had 4 days before dd was born. I am not sure if it could have had anything to do with her having her difficulties now.
4 days before she was born a woman crashed into the back of me and her car was a right off. I stupidly didn't go to hospital until 2 days later when I had some bleeding. The hospital were mortified that I hadn't come straight in, did a trace and dd's heart rate was erratic so they kept me in. Dd was born the next day. I am seriously considering having an mri scan done to rule out any damage.
I have mentioned this many times before and all of the pros have said there is no way it's connected. How can they be so sure? What do you think?

I don't know, but an mri scan would be quite unlikely to show anything (and would require a ga). For comparison my friend's dd hase oncontrolled epilepsy, is losing skills (woke up one morning unable to talk, next day couldn't stand) but the mri was normal.

What would knowing whether it was the car accident achieve? I don't mean that to sound harsh (i think it does written down) but not many places would want to risk a ga unless there was clinical benefit at the end of it.

I also had a car accident the day before DS was due, but no bleeding and went straight to hospital and his heart rate was normal. No concerns at all, really. But were you hurt? Was your bump bumped badly? I wouldn't have thought it would have done any harm to DD if you didn't even feel the need to go to hospital.

Just for the record, my DS had an MRI and it showed no abnormality, which I find quite reassuring, though I take Jimjams' point, because apparently CP (for example) doesn't always show up on an MRI. But if you do feel you want to get one, the ga they give is very mild and only takes them minutes to get over.

Blossomhill: I have no idea about whether the car accident could be to blame - it would depend probably on whether dd was directly impacted or not. An mri scan might ease your mind but she would have to go under general anaesthetic (which I found hard when my dd had to have one.) She came through okay it was just hard seeing them put her to sleep. Sorry to hijack here but...

Jimjams:
Alarm bells went off when you talked about your friends child. My daughter had epilepsy that took away her all her skills until the epilepsy was controlled - the name for it was infantile spasms. Usually starts by the time the child is one. These seizures must be controlled or they take everything away. My baby lost everything - at 10 months she could not even lift her head up off the floor and slept all the time (much more than a normal baby would). She also had a normal mri.

If your friend is not already seeing a paediatric neurologist I would strongly recommend seeing one immediately. She probably already is but this problem is close to my heart and early intervention/medication limits the damage done. We think our daughter was always susceptible to autism but that the seizures and the length of time she was untreated may have triggered it IYKWIM. Of course your friend's childs seizures may not be the same ones at my dds but the fact she is losing skills is alarming.

Friend's dd is 8 IG. TBH her care has been pretty shocking from the beginning. I think they may now be thinking lennox gestalt (or whatever its called). She is dxed with autsim and learning difficulties, but she's not really autistic in the traditional sense (she has autism because of the her other problems iyswim).

I think she's seeing a genetic counsellor soon- (aged 8 !!!) and hopefully there'll be more tests. I think most things have been ruled out now leaving epilepsy to be the cause of the problems. I think friend has been told it was caused by epilepsy but I don't think the seizures are very well controlled still.

whoops sorry for crashing.

I think BH if you wanted to get an MRI you'd have to be very clear of a clinical reason for doing it (ie your dd could benefit from the findings) , I don't think the hospitals would be very keen to do it otherwise (because of the GA although agree with pages its not a heavy dose- just they don't like the risk of being sued if something does goo wrong).

Jimjams: I've heard of Lennox Gasteaux(sp?) syndrome - this is one of the syndromes we were looking at when DD had her epilepsy - were also West Syndrome. I think infantile spasms are common in Lennox Gasteaux. Are they doing anything to try to control the seizures?

she's been on horse doses of medications for years.....

poor wee thing... must be hard for the family. We were just lucky dd responded to the first dose of meds they gave her and began to improve with therapy. At the beginning the outlook was bleak but sometimes now we just thank our lucky stars that autism is all she (and we) ended up with.

Sorry BH - end hijack.

Yep, people with Lennox Gestault often have Infantile spasms, especially when young. They are so so damaging and really need to be controlled.

BH - I kind of agree with Jimjams - what really would you achieve by having an MRI? If it shows up damage then it still isn't going to tell you if that was caused by the accident. It might just leave you still wondering or beating yourself up about something you now cannot change. Also, you know, even if it showed damage IME it still really tells you very little about 'treatment' or even prognosis.

When dd had her MRI I thought it would tell me which bits of her brain were affected and therefore what she would or wouldn't be able to do. Not so. I know which bits of her brain are missing or malformed but no-one can tell me exactly how that will affect her.

It is quite a lot to put your dd through for something which I really doubt will make any difference to her now. Sorry if that sounds blunt. Am typing in a hurry so maybe not expressing it with as much care as I would like.

x

Blossomhill:
I think Jimjams and HITC make really valid points in that the specialists would want a specific reason to put dd under ga for an mri and what would you really find out and how, at this point, could you put any of it down to the car accident.

I know its hard not to look back and say "what if this" or "what if that" but what's important now is the future and that little literary genius you have in your home.

I hope you are keeping her stories for a memory album or for when you actually want to publish them some day. You just never know what the future holds - but it can be great - especially if you think it will be!

IG, I didn't know your DD had infantile spasms - my DS did too and I am sure he was developing normally beforehand. Would love to ask you more but don't want to hijack Blossom's thread - would u mind if I CAT'd you? Or i could just start a new thread just for you?

Go ahead and CAT me if you like...

I have just started a different thread on infantile spasms so we can stop hijacking BH's thread