Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Search terms - sometimes they make me laugh. Sometimes not so much.

"premature babies with blood on their brains, what do they do"

This one made me sad. They probably mean intraventricular hemorrhage (AKA interventricular hemorrhage). Bleeding into the ventricles can be relatively insignificant if there is only a little blood - but that depends on the location of the bleeding. Many babies with grade I or grade II IVH are completely healthy with no significant developmental delay - but not all.

Larger amounts of bleeding (grade III and grade IV) are more commonly, but not always, associated with developmental delays and cerebral palsy.

Sometimes there is so much blood in the ventricles that not enough fluid flows out of them. This causes increased pressure within the brain (hydrocephalus), which can also increase the risk of developmental delays. If the fluid persists, the baby may need a ventriculoperitoneal shunt placed. With the smaller babies, serial lumbar punctures (spinal taps) may be used to postpone shunt placement until the baby is large enough.

1 comment:

Taking Heart said...

My husband is taking a medical terminology class (for giggles) and was amazed to see how so many of the students didn't even know what a prefix or suffix were... personally, I just don't look forward to the day when he knows more words than I do!