Neonatal seizures can be very scary, particularly for a first time parent. When your baby come into the world, the last thing you want to think about is watching your beautiful new baby seizing uncontrollably in your arms. Thanks to medical research, we now have a way to help lessen the instances of seizure activity in infants. Some of these treatments require you as a new mommy or daddy to force meds into their systems. After witnessing a neonatal seizure most parents will do whatever they have to in order to keep from having to ever watch it again.
There are many reasons your baby could be experiencing neonatal seizures. Regardless of the reason, there are also many treatments available to quell the seizures until they go away on their own, which they almost always do. Neonatal seizures can last anywhere from a week to over a year, but they are not usually permanent. One of the biggest reasons you child may experience neonatal seizures is due to trauma to the head at birth. The baby’s liver is not ready to process the extra blood that needs to be exposed of so it can cause not just neonatal seizures but also a much more sever case of jaundice.
If your baby is diagnosed with neonatal seizures, you will be referred to a neonatal or pediatric neurologist. The doctor will have you keep a record of all the seizures your baby has. The will want to know how often, how long they last, and what happens to your baby during the seizure. The reason for this is that they want to make sure that there is nothing else to worry about and to see if the medication they prescribe has any effect on the seizures. The medications they give your baby are usually tiny little ball-like pellets that you must put in the back of their mouth before allowing them to drink. This is a scary and disheartening ask, but again, your doctor knows what they are doing.
There are not a lot of different treatments for neonatal seizures as these usually go away on their own, but the seizures themselves can be dangerous. So the medications your doctor prescribes mut be taken as directed.