Convulsion in children
What is infantile convulsion?
I believe there are countless questions in your heart: convulsions in children? What kind of disease is this? Why did my baby suddenly get this disease? First of all, let's answer what is infantile convulsion.
Convulsion, also known as convulsion and convulsion, is a common acute disease in infants, especially those under 3 years old. This disease is caused by abnormal organs and functions of the brain. The typical feature of convulsion is sudden loss of consciousness, accompanied by general or local rigidity (rigidity) or facial and limb muscle clonus (convulsion), often accompanied by hanging eyes, staring or squinting, foaming at the mouth, holding your breath and cyanosis on the face. Some children also have urinary incontinence. The attack time varies from a few seconds to a few minutes. Don't go to sleep until the convulsion stops. The incidence of convulsions in children is very high, and about 5 ~ 6% of infants have had one or more convulsions. Frequent seizures or persistent convulsions will endanger life, or may leave serious sequelae for children, and will also affect their intellectual development and health.
Convulsions can usually be divided into two categories: infectious and non-infectious
Infectious convulsion, also known as febrile convulsion, is a common emergency symptom of central nervous system dysfunction in children, especially infants. The prone age is 6 months to 5 years old, and the peak period is 9 months to 20 months. Its incidence rate is about 2% to 4%, and it is 2% to 5% in Europe and America. Febrile convulsion is mostly caused by various infectious diseases, and upper respiratory tract infection is the most common. Its typical clinical manifestations are: sudden loss of consciousness, often accompanied by binocular ball upturning, staring or strabismus, facial muscle or limb muscle rigidity, spasm or persistent convulsion. The attack time can range from a few seconds to several minutes, and sometimes it occurs repeatedly or even continuously. Severe febrile convulsion can leave nervous system sequelae.
Noninfectious convulsion, also known as febrile convulsion, is common in metabolic diseases and nutritional disorders (such as amino acid metabolic diseases, phenylketonuria, hypocalcemia, hyponatremia, hypernatremia, hypokalemia, hypoglycemia and vitamin B6 dependence); Various toxic encephalopathy, central nervous system diseases (congenital malformation, trauma, etc. ), hysteria, epilepsy, etc This disease usually does not cause a fever, but sometimes it can cause a temperature rise due to prolonged convulsions. At this time, fever is the consequence of convulsion, not the cause. Generally, it is not difficult to distinguish febrile convulsion from febrile convulsion by asking the medical history in detail and finding the primary focus and cause.
Symptoms of convulsions in children
So, how can we be sure that the baby is a infantile convulsion? What are the specific manifestations of this disease? What are the symptoms? Generally speaking, a few people have premonitions before the attack, which are manifested as: extreme irritability or "jumping" from time to time, mental tension and panic, sudden increase in muscle tension of limbs, sudden shortness of breath, pause or irregularity, sudden increase in body temperature, drastic changes in complexion, unequal pupil sizes and uneven edges.
The typical manifestations of convulsion are sudden attack, loss of consciousness, head tilting, fixed eyeball upturning or strabismus, foaming at the mouth, gnashing of teeth, facial or limb muscle clonus or tonic convulsion, and in severe cases, neck rigidity, hunchback, respiratory disorder, cyanosis or incontinence may occur, and the convulsion lasts for several seconds to several minutes or longer. Then turn into lethargy or coma. Signs such as dilated pupils, slow response to light, and positive pathological reflex can be seen during or shortly after the attack. Consciousness recovered shortly after the attack stopped. When hypocalcemia convulses, the child can wake up. If convulsions occur again before consciousness is restored, or repeated convulsions are in a persistent state, it means that the condition is serious and he may die of brain edema and respiratory failure. If the location of convulsion is limited and constant, it often has localization significance.
Neonatal convulsions often show various irregular movements, such as apnea, irregularity, binocular gaze and paroxysmal pallor cyanosis. There are not many patients with generalized convulsions, which are often manifested as irregular or paused breathing rhythm, paroxysmal cyanosis or pallor, eye gaze, nystagmus, blinking, sucking and chewing. Infantile convulsions sometimes only show bickering, canthus convulsions, one-limb convulsions or two-limb alternating convulsions.
The manifestations of severe convulsion are: convulsion lasts for more than 30 minutes, or consciousness can not be fully recovered between seizures. Simple febrile convulsion is common in infants from 6 months to 4 years old, which mostly occurs in the early stage of fever and lasts for a short time, and rarely occurs repeatedly in a fever disease. Often occurs in fever 12 hours. Consciousness recovered quickly after the attack, and there were no positive signs of nervous system. After a week of fever, EEG returned to normal. Typical symptoms of febrile convulsion in children
The onset age of complex febrile convulsion is uncertain, and it often occurs 6 months ago or after 6 years old. At first, it was febrile convulsion, and after several episodes, there were cases of low fever or even no fever. Sometimes it is repeated many times, and a seizure takes a long time, and it is critical convulsion when it exceeds 15 minutes.
Etiology of convulsion in children
The baby sat quietly playing. Suddenly, his head tilted, his eyes bulged, he was foaming at the mouth and his whole body twitched. His mother was frightened and immediately picked up the child and ran to the hospital. Exophthalmos, stiff or trembling limbs, unconsciousness and even urinary incontinence are typical symptoms of infantile convulsions. Infantile convulsion is sudden and dangerous, which may lead to serious consequences if it is not treated in time. There are many reasons for children's convulsions, so come and learn!
Several common diseases that cause convulsions are: febrile convulsion, intracranial infection, toxic encephalopathy, infantile spasm, hypoglycemia, hypomagnesemia, poisoning, hypocalcemia and so on. At different ages, the causes of convulsions in children are different.
Neonatal period: birth injury, asphyxia, intracranial hemorrhage, septicemia, meningitis, tetanus and bilirubin encephalopathy are common, and sometimes brain development defects, metabolic abnormalities, giant cell inclusion disease and toxoplasmosis should be considered.
Infantile period: febrile convulsion, toxic encephalopathy, intracranial infection, tetany and infantile spasm are common, and sometimes attention should be paid to brain development defects, sequelae of brain injury, drug poisoning and hypoglycemia.
Childhood: toxic encephalopathy, intracranial infection, epilepsy and poisoning are common, and attention should be paid to intracranial space-occupying lesions and hypertensive encephalopathy.
How to prevent convulsions in children
Convulsion in children has a certain impact on the baby's health, which seriously endangers the baby's health and intellectual development. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. If you want your baby to stay away from convulsions in children, you must actively prevent it. The main methods are:
1, strengthen nursing and physical exercise. When the weather changes, increase or decrease clothes in time to avoid catching cold; Try not to go to public places and places with a large floating population, such as supermarkets, stations and cinemas. To avoid catching a cold; If an adult at home has a cold, you need to wear a mask and try to avoid contact with your baby. Always open the window indoors for ventilation, let the baby go outdoors more, let the body adapt to the environment, improve the baby's resistance and reduce the occurrence of infectious diseases.
2. Pay attention to balanced nutrition. In addition to the milk diet, the baby should also add complementary foods in time, such as cod liver oil, calcium tablets, vitamin B 1, vitamin B6 and various minerals, so as to avoid starvation and hypocalcemia and hypoglycemia convulsions.
3. Use drugs correctly and reasonably to prevent the baby from taking toxic drugs by mistake.
4. Strengthen nursing. After the baby has a fever, it is necessary to observe the body temperature and sweating. If you sweat and your fever goes down, your condition will get better. Dry the baby in time, change clothes and bedding to prevent catching cold. In addition, it is necessary to prevent the baby from hitting the head and causing brain trauma, and it is not allowed to hit the baby's head at will.