What are the causes of infant nodding spasms?

In clinical practice, infant nodding spasms are also a common disease. Generally speaking, nodding spasms in infants are mostly a type of epilepsy. Parents need to find out the factors that cause infant nodding spasms. So, what are the causes of infant nodding spasms? The editor will explain it to you below, and I hope everyone will benefit from it.

Infantile nodding spasm is also known as "Wegener syndrome". It is common in two-year-old infants, 90% of which occur before one year old, with the peak incidence being between 4 and 6 months of age. The pattern that occurs is intensive and repeated nodding, with the head nodding forward and backward instead of swaying from side to side, and sometimes even combining stretching of the hands and feet with flexion of the torso. Most of the attacks occur shortly after waking up and almost never during sleep. Infants suffering from nodding spasms are often accompanied by brain lesions, poor intelligence, and slower development of movement and language than normal babies. Nodding movements, special EEG patterns and intellectual disability are the three main characteristics of this disease.

1 Tuberous sclerosis

Among patients with tuberous sclerosis complex, 40% will show infantile nodding spasms; conversely, among patients with infantile nodding spasms, 4% to 25% can be diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis complex. What exactly is tuberous sclerosis complex? It is a genetic disease with an incidence rate of one in 30,000. There will be nodules in the brain, white spots on the skin in early childhood, and acne-like symptoms at the age of 4 to 6. It is easily accompanied by intellectual disability. When a baby has infantile nodding spasms and skin lesions, a brain CT or MRI should be done to determine whether it is tuberous sclerosis.

2 Aicardi syndrome

Female, seizures begin when she is a few months old and are difficult to control with anti-epileptic drugs. Brain imaging tests can reveal the absence of the corpus callosum. The patients are severely mentally retarded and may also have abnormalities in their spine and eyes.

3 Other reasons

Before and during delivery, there are hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, congenital infection, hereditary metabolic abnormalities, central nervous system infection and head trauma.

Prenatal: hydrocephalus, microcephaly, schizencephaly, Down syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, Aicardi syndrome, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, congenital infection and trauma, etc.

During delivery: hypoxic-ischemic brain disease, meningoencephalitis, intracranial hemorrhage and trauma, etc.

Postpartum: metabolic diseases such as meningoencephalitis, mitochondrial disease, degenerative diseases, maple syrup urine disease, etc.

From the above, we can see that factors such as tuberous sclerosis, Aicardi syndrome, congenital infection, meningoencephalitis, hydrocephalus and trauma are the causes of nodding spasm in infants. Therefore, when parents find that their infants have nodding spasm, they must find the cause and then find a treatment method that can correspond to the corresponding symptoms.