May is American Stroke Month, and doctors and the American Stroke Association want people to pay close attention to the warning signs, including in a group most people would not expect to be considered high-risk: newborns and very young children.

  • Post-natal children are at high-risk for strokes
  • Elderly only at high risk from strokes a misconception
  • Still many unknowns regarding infants and strokes

Children like two-and-a-half-year-old Eli Allert, who suffered a stroke shortly after he was born, aren’t what most people think of when it comes to strokes. But Eli’s doctor and John’s Hopkins All Children’s Hospital Stroke Division Director Neil Goldenberg said the notion that strokes only occur in older people is just not true.
 
“Yes, it’s definitely a misconception,” said Goldenberg. “So, apart from elderly patients and, for example, the 65 and older crowd in particular, where the risk of stroke is high, the next most frequent time for stroke is unfortunately in the post natal period.”
 
Eli’s mother Suzanne said she never thought her son suffering from a stroke was a possibility.

“Oh, I was shocked," said Suzanne. "I mean, I would’ve never, ever guessed that my child would’ve had a stroke,” she said.
 
Suzanne said doctors believe the stroke happened right after her long and difficult delivery.
 
“My labor was long, and it stunk, as all labors do, but he was having a hard time progressing, and it became a prolonged labor and it became a very difficult labor and ended up an emergency C-section,” she said. “Initially, everything looked fine. He was having a little trouble breathing, but they took him to the nursery right after he was born just to make sure that he was ok, and about two hours old he ended up coding. He quit breathing.”
 
“They on day three did an MRI and found out he had had a large left sided stroke that affected four lobes of the brain," she continued. "And on the right side it affected one of the lobes of the brain."
 
Today, Suzanne is pregnant again with twins. Goldenberg said what happened with Eli is unlikely to happen again, however, because it occurs in one out of every 2,000 live births, mostly caused by difficult deliveries or infections in the womb.

“There are actually different types of strokes,” Goldberg said. “Some that occur probably early in the gestation and some probably occur right around the time of delivery, and the first few days in the hospital.”
 
Goldenberg said research is being done, but there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to babies and strokes.
 
“We don’t know for sure whether a stroke is occurring prior to birth, late in pregnancy, if it’s happening around the time of delivery or even in the first few days after,” he said.
 
Strokes can also affect older children too. He said parents need to pay attention to warning signs, such as a baby jerking, which could mean the infant is having a seizure. Headaches, vomiting, or loss of movement on one side of the body are also warning signs.
 
Goldenberg said there isn’t much parents can do to prevent a stroke, seeking treatment immediately can help with the effects.