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Did Your Newborn Suffer Cerebral
Palsy or Another Brain Injury Before
or During Labor and Delivery?

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Our Birth Brain Injury Resource Guide

the guide

Get a FREE guide of resources available throughout Ohio to children and families of children who were born with brain injuries.

Our guide can help you build a foundation of knowledge and tools that will help you help your child
now and in the future.

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Brain Injury News and Research - Headaches

Brain injury or(BI), in children can cause many long-lasting effects. Headaches later on in life rank among the most common. A few studies establish a link between birth brain injuries and headaches sustained later on in life.

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Brain Injury Causes Headaches in Childhood and Adolescence

According to the National Headache Foundation, there is sufficient evidence that girls who have experienced a traumatic BI are more likely than their peers to experience headaches during childhood and adolescence.

The study also suggests that girls are more prone to having headaches as a result of a brain injury than boys.

Researchers evaluated the condition of more than 400 children that had sustained a BI (classified as mild, moderate or severe). They did evaluations three months and 12 months after the injury to figure out whether headaches were common.

Elk & Elk

Children that sustained a mild BI were the ones most likely to experience headaches as a result. Of these children, 43 percent reported experiencing headaches at the three-month mark. In comparison, 37 percent of the children that experienced moderate to severe BI reported suffering from headaches.

Girls were more likely than the boys to suffer from headaches – 59 percent had such a problem. There was no difference between the children in the control group and the ones that experienced BI one year after the occurrence.

This is one of the most enlightening studies about the effects of BI in children. There’s very little information about chronic headaches and whether these have anything to do with brain trauma that occurs at birth or later on in life.

Traumatic Birth Linked to the Early Onset of Migraines?

Migraines are quite often inexplicable, and medics find it difficult to pinpoint the cause of the problem. Some research, however, establishes a link between the early onset of migraines and a traumatic birth.

The research was concluded in Switzerland’s University Hospital of Lausanne. Researchers screened the medical background of people suffering from migraines. Of the individuals that participated in the experiment, two reported a particularly traumatic birth involving the use of forceps.

Both of the patients had visible head scars, and both of them had been having chronic headaches since early childhood. These individuals classified the headaches as quite severe, and both had been absent for more than 30 days from work per year due to migraines.

While the sample is a small one, the researchers concluded that a traumatic birth could be one of the reasons for the early onset of migraines. The mechanical extraction of a baby using tools like the forceps could potentially cause fibrotic damage to the nerve cells in the head. As a result, chronic ages since childhood will be experienced by many of the people who went through such an assisted birth.

Headaches: A Symptom That Shouldn’t be Underestimated

A headache is one of the most common symptoms of brain injury in kids. As such, it should never be underestimated or left without medical attention.

The Brain Injury Association of America reports that brain injuries could be characterized by problems like persistent headaches, constant crying, poor attention span, changes in sleep patterns and inability to be consoled. If any of these persist for a long period of time, a follow-up with a doctor will be required.