WHAT TO LOOK FOR & WHEN TO WORRY ABOUT HEAD INJURIES If your child is unconscious, but breathing and pink (no blue lips), lay her on a flat surface and call emergency medical services. If you have cause to suspect a neck injury, don’t move the child but let the trained experts in neck injuries transport her. If she is not breathing, apply CPR, or if she’s having a convulsion, keep her airway clear. Sometimes, if baby is sensitive and prone to temper tantrums, she may be pushed into a breath-holding spell, which could be mistaken for a convulsion. This scene naturally pushes panic buttons and gets baby rushed to the hospital. Even if this turns out to be unnecessary, it is better to be safe. When in doubt, take baby and sit in the waiting room of the local hospital emergency room. A period of observation. If your child is alert and conscious, walking, talking, playing, and acting like she was before the fall, administer a dose of parental sympathy, apply an ice pack to the cut or bump for twenty minutes, and begin a period of observation before calling your doctor. The reason for the period of observation is because doctors often rely more on how the child behaves after the injury than what happened at the time of the injury. If the brain has been injured, signs may show immediately, or they may appear slowly during the next twenty-four hours. After the period of observation, depending on your baby’s condition, you may or may not with to call the doctor. Besides any when-to-call-the-doctor list there is an overriding inner voice. Trust this monitoring system as much as the most sophisticated electronics. If it tells you something’s not quite right, call your doctor to report baby’s condition, seek advice, and above all tell the doctor why you are concerned. ~~askdrsears/topics/health-concerns/aches-pains-injuries/head-injuries
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:19:19 +0000
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