Story submitted by pat wagner on January 18, 19100 at 16:35:11:
pat wagner is , from albuquerque, new mexico.
Family:
I have three children. My middle child, a 17 year old girl and my youngest, an 11 year old son, both have brachial plexus injuries. After my daughter was born, it was immediately evident that she had brachial plexus injuries to both arms. She even suffered a broken left arm due to the difficulty of the vaginal delivery. I was told by the doctors, that the Erb's palsy would clear up in 6 weeks. The left arm--including the broken humorus--healed completely within a couple of months. The right arm continues to show under development of the biceps and triceps. We did consult several neurologists to see if there should be any intervention. We were told that nothing could be done. Fortunately for my daughter, the residual problems are not significant, largely due to the amount of forced physical therapy, sports activities and constant manipulation of her right arm. Six years later we had a son. Prior to his birth, the obstetrician was made fully aware of my daughter's brachial plexus injury. The doctors--including a high risk obstetrician--decided that since I had already given birth to two children vaginally, that they would monitor the size and development of this third child and deliver him early vaginally by inducing an early labor. A cesarean section was not seriously entertained by the doctors because they felt that they could deliver my son early at a smaller size thus controlling the situation. My labor was induced 3 weeks early. My son was delivered vaginally with difficulty and he also incurred a brachial plexus injury. His injury was more severe than my daughter's. I again was told that we needed to wait and watch. I made the rounds to every neurologist in the city, I took him to physical therapists, physiologists, and again to the neurologists. At no time was I told that there could should be any intervention to correct the problem. Finally when he was 5--a children's neuro-surgeon moved to our city. He said that if there had been early intervention that the nerve damage may have been corrected, but by the age of 5 such intervention would not help. My son is now 11, he has the obvious signs of Erb's Palsy, limited range of motion, short arm, underdevelop shoulder socket. All of this could have been prevented had the doctors--the so called experts---bothered to do any research rather than rely on the outdated information they had been given during their medical school education. My son is luckier than many children. We have made sure that he has learned to compensate for the handicap. We have made sure that he learns to swim, he participated in gymnastics and he plays baseball. But because the initial treating doctors were so ignorant, he will continue to have developmental deficiencies in his right arm. This was all entirely preventable. It is only since I have had access to the internet that I have learned that there is by some accounts a 85% chance that if one child has received a brachial plexus injury that successive children will also suffer the same type of injury. I am hoping to find out if there is something that can be done for my son so that at the very least the arm and shoulder can develop at a better rate so that as he hits puberty the disparity between the normal arm and the affected arm are lessened. Thank you to those you may read this.
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