What are the sequelae of neonatal intracranial hemorrhage?

Many newborns are prone to intracranial hemorrhage when they are born, especially some premature babies, who are more likely to have intracranial hemorrhage symptoms. Neonatal intracranial hemorrhage will have a great impact on the child, especially on the child's intelligence. Once neonatal intracranial hemorrhage occurs, in order to save the child's life, timely treatment must be carried out. If it is not treated in time, even if the life is saved, it will cause many sequelae. So what are the sequelae of neonatal intracranial hemorrhage?

Neonatal intracranial hemorrhage is an extremely serious disease, and its prognosis depends on the amount and location of bleeding. If the amount of bleeding is large or bleeding occurs in the brain parenchyma or ventricles, it will leave the child with varying degrees of sequelae or even death, so parents must pay attention to it.

This is because when brain cells are deprived of oxygen, the permeability of the intracranial blood vessel walls can increase, causing blood to overflow from the blood vessels; and mechanical injuries to the fetus during delivery, such as the disproportionate size of the head and pelvis, forceps delivery, repeated vacuum or hip traction delivery, and emergency delivery, can all cause intracranial blood vessels to rupture and bleed. The clinical manifestations of intracranial hemorrhage in newborns are: when the amount of bleeding is small, there may be no symptoms, the child recovers quickly and the prognosis is good; if the amount of bleeding is large and located in the vital parts of the brain, the child may become irritable, scream, drowsy, have rigidity or spasms of the limbs, irregular breathing, inability to feed, paralysis of the whole body, and even die; some children will suffer serious sequelae even if they survive by chance. According to relevant statistics, about 30% of neonatal intracranial hemorrhage will have sequelae of varying degrees.

The main sequelae are as follows:

1. Low intelligence

Since intracranial hemorrhage can affect the normal development of brain cells, it can affect the intelligence of the child. According to relevant reports, when the IQ of children with intracranial hemorrhage who have recovered is measured, a considerable number of them have varying degrees of decline in IQ. In mild cases, their motor behavior development is worse than that of children of the same age, they have language dysfunction and poor academic performance. After proper treatment and education, they can take care of themselves and their studies can reach the level of primary school students. In severe cases, their intelligence is severely impaired, and most of them cannot take care of themselves and need care for the rest of their lives.

2. Epilepsy: Intracranial hemorrhage in newborns is an important cause of epilepsy in children. This is because even if the child with intracranial hemorrhage survives after rescue, the large amount of intracranial bleeding is not cleared in time. Over time, the blood clot becomes organized. The organized blood clot exists in the brain and forms an abnormal discharge lesion, which causes the child to suffer from epilepsy and repeated attacks.

3. Cerebral palsy

Due to severe intracranial hemorrhage, brain cells will be damaged to varying degrees, which may eventually affect the development of brain cells and cause cerebral palsy in children. The cerebral palsy caused by this often manifests as spastic cerebral palsy. As children grow older, they are often discovered by their parents because of difficulty in raising their heads and sitting. When crying or standing, the lower limbs of these children may experience spastic extension and adduction, and hyperreflexia of the knees and ankles. A few children are unable to walk at all; most gradually learn to walk after a few years, walking with bilateral toes touching the ground with adduction spasms, presenting a scissor-like gait. Children with this type of cerebral palsy may have intellectual disability, the degree of which is roughly parallel to the severity of the paralysis.

Intracranial hemorrhage in newborns can also cause sequelae such as microgyria or microcephaly.

It can be seen from this that neonatal intracranial hemorrhage not only causes sequelae, but is also extremely serious. Various effective measures should be taken to prevent the occurrence of neonatal intracranial hemorrhage. First of all, do regular prenatal check-ups during pregnancy, and if any malposition of the fetus or cephalopelvic disproportion is found, focus on monitoring. During delivery, fetal hypoxia should be prevented and oxytocin or central nervous system depressant drugs, such as morphine, should not be abused. Premature babies, newborns delivered through surgery, and newborns who have suffered asphyxia during delivery should be given special care after birth and intramuscular injection of vitamin K to prevent intracranial hemorrhage.

In life, we must prevent children from suffering from sequelae caused by intracranial hemorrhage. These sequelae cause great harm to newborns and have great side effects. To avoid these sequelae, we must promptly stop bleeding and treat the child. If the child bleeds heavily, surgery may be required for symptomatic treatment if necessary. During this period, the child's daily symptoms must be strictly observed to avoid crises.