Dropsy of the brain in children, or hydrocephalus, unfortunately, is a common pathology at birth. To some extent, it is diagnosed in many babies. Typically, dropsy occurs due to excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain or due to a violation of its normal outflow. In this case, the liquid itself exerts pressure on the brain, and prolonged such pressure can cause brain edema and death. Therefore, dropsy of the brain, the treatment of which was started at an early stage, has more positive prognoses than a running disease.
Dropsy of the brain in children can be either congenital or acquired, but in most cases this disease is congenital, and a pathology of development is formed in the womb.
Symptoms of dropsy are visually noticeable immediately after birth, but some mothers are told about this diagnosis before the baby is born, according to the results of an ultrasound examination. If the diagnosis is accurate, and the pathology is not compatible with life, then doctors insist on having an artificial birth or abortion.
If the child has already been born, and the dropsy of the brain has not been identified, then it can be installed according to certain signs. These include:
- extremely large head size;
- an increase in head size during the first weeks of a child's life;
- convex fontanel;
- irritability;
- seizures similar to epileptic;
vomiting
- dropping the eyeballs down.
These are the first signs that diagnosed dropsy of the brain in children. In the future, such children lag behind in development, are excessively irritable, aggressive, learn to walk late, are clumsy, suffer from memory loss, confused consciousness, they may experience urinary incontinence.
The causes of dropsy of the brain are quite complex. In order to understand them, we turn a little to physiology. The composition of the brain resembles a soft jelly-like mass, which seems to float in the cranium and is supported “afloat” by cerebrospinal fluid. The liquid itself fills the ventricles located in the depths of the brain. Cerebrospinal fluid has an outlet - through the vessels and tubules, it enters the space between the skull and the brain and from there is absorbed by the bloodstream. In order for the fluid to be balanced, its production, circulation and absorption must be normal. The intracranial pressure indicator also depends on this. If there are pathologies that interfere with the outflow of cerebrospinal fluid (for example, narrowing of the ventricles, impaired absorption), then such a pathology as hydrocephalus (dropsy) occurs.
Dropsy of the brain in children most often occurs due to prematurity, problems of the mother when bearing a child, infection in the uterus, developmental pathologies (non-closure of the spinal canal).
In older children, dropsy can develop due to a brain tumor, head injury, infection of the central nervous system.
If any signs of a child’s health are detected, parents should consult a doctor. Symptoms such as long and frequent crying in a child, problems with feeding, weak movements of the head and neck, asthma attacks, and an increased pulsating fontanel can indicate hydrocephalus.
At an early stage of the disease, conservative drug treatment is indicated. Progressing dropsy of the brain in children requires surgery. Most operations are performed by shunting, when through special shunts, fluid from the brain flows into the abdominal cavity. A huge minus of this method is the need to replace shunts that fail. Such an operation is quite expensive. Currently, a neuroendoscopy technique has been developed that can save the life of a child suffering from this disease.