Most of you will know that Lachie was born early at 36 weeks, due to my Pre Eclampsia - he was a small baby and spent a short time in the Special Care Nursery on CPAP and in the humidicrib.
At birth his head was disproportionately large (around the 90th+ percentile, while his length and weight were below the 3rd percentile) but most newborns look like that so we weren't concerned.
He has been a couple of months or more behind in his milestones and development, but we've attributed that to the fact that he was early and that babies just develop on their own time.
Around 7 months his paediatrician decided to send us for a head ultrasound because of his large head, but didn't think anything was really wrong - just precautionary.
That ultrasound showed "prominent ventricles" but the radiologist said that because they had no previous images to compare it to they couldn't tell if it was significant or not, or whether his brain just looked like that normally.
The paediatrician thought that again it was just precautionary and it would turn out to just be benign macrocephaly - in the family or whatever.
We were referred for another ultrasound 3 and a bit months later (last week) and the results this time were a bit more worrying -
There is persistent ventriculomegaly with dilatation of the lateral and third ventricles. This appears to be disproportionate relative to that of the extra-axial CSF spaces and such is not typical of benign macrocephaly of infancy. Aqueductal stenosis or other obstructive aetiology could give this pattern. Is Lachlan's head circumference crossing centile lines? MRI would be advised for further evaulation.
So it looks like it likely ISN'T benign, and may be a form of hydrocephaly. Hopefully whatever it is is mild enough to not require shunting, but we'll see I guess.
We have his MRI tomorrow, and I think I'm feeling more sick about him being anaesthetised than I am about the results, at the moment!
Even if he does have hydro, it seems to be quite mild as he doesn't have a severely large head or bulging forehead or sunsetting eyes or anything, and he's quite happy and stuff, just a few months behind in milestones etc.
So... I guess we'll see how it goes.
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