How serious is the problem of neonatal cerebral edema?

Neonatal cerebral edema is a relatively common disease and it is also a disease that poses a serious threat to newborns. It is an acute and severe disease. When a newborn develops cerebral edema, it may often endanger the life of the newborn. In the early stages of neonatal cerebral edema, it does not have a significant impact on the intelligence of the newborn, but in the late stages it will show symptoms such as mental retardation and limb paralysis.

Symptoms of neonatal cerebral edema :

1. Symptoms of brain damage :

Localized cerebral edema often occurs around local brain contusions or space-occupying lesions such as brain tumors and vascular diseases. Common symptoms include worsening of epilepsy and paralysis symptoms, or motor aphasia caused by the expansion of the water quality range and the spread of language and motor centers. After brain injury, if symptoms gradually worsen, cerebral edema should be considered. Diffuse cerebral edema may continue to expand to the whole brain due to uncontrolled localized cerebral edema, or it may be diffuse cerebral edema from the beginning, such as diffuse axonal injury.

2. Symptoms of increased intracranial pressure :

Symptoms include headache, increased vomiting, restlessness, drowsiness and even coma. Fundus examination may reveal papilledema. Early compensatory symptoms include changes in vital signs, slowed pulse and breathing, and increased blood pressure. If cerebral edema and high intracranial pressure continue to worsen, brain herniation may occur.

3. Other symptoms

Cerebral edema affecting the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and anterior thalamus can cause mental disorders, and in severe cases, confusion and coma. Increased intracranial pressure can also cause psychiatric symptoms. Sometimes the body temperature rises moderately, and cerebral edema involves the hypothalamus, which can cause symptoms of hypothalamic damage.

Treatment of cerebral edema

1. Stay calm, reduce crying, and reduce oxygen consumption. The medication is phenobarbital injection.

2. Maintain blood sugar at 3.4-5 mmol/L to ensure energy supply. The medicine is 5% glucose injection.

3. Ensure fluid supply and prevent bleeding. The drugs include glucose, saline, vitamin K1 injection, and plasma if necessary (depending on the specific condition of the child).

4. To reduce cerebral edema, the drugs are: 20% mannitol injection and furosemide injection.

5. To nourish brain cells, the drugs are: deproteinized calf serum water injection or cytidine diphosphate, heparin cap, heparin sodium injection is used for anticoagulation during infusion (only used when infusion is done with a cannula needle). Herba Subtilis Bivalent Multivitamins Granules are used to regulate gastrointestinal function.