4-year-old boy had 3 cerebral hemorrhages

Th, the baby’s mother shared, right after birth, baby N was found to have swelling on one side of the top of his head. When he was 15 days old, his swelling on the top of his head did not improve, the family decided to take him to the hospital. Up to the National Children’s Hospital, the results received all showed that the baby had hemophilia (hemophilia).

Hearing the news that their child was ill, Th and her husband were extremely confused, only hugging each other and crying. Baby N’s biological uncle (Th’s older brother) and cousin (Th’s sister’s child) were both diagnosed with this disease.

Having hemophilia, baby N often had pain in his arms and legs and had two cerebral hemorrhages when he was 16 months old and 2 years old. Every 2 months, the couple takes turns taking their son to the hospital for a blood transfusion.

This time, seeing that her child had abdominal pain, vomiting, fever, no symptoms of headache, Ms. Th took her child to the hospital immediately because she felt abnormal. The patient was admitted to the National Children’s Hospital, was clinically tested and had a CT scan of the brain, and was diagnosed with cerebral hemorrhage on the background of a patient with hemophilia.

“Fortunately, I was treated promptly by doctors, leaving no sequelae” Ms. Th shared sadly.

TS.BS Nguyen Mai Huong – Head of the Department of Clinical Hematology at the National Children’s Hospital – said that hemophilia is an inherited blood clotting disorder caused by decreased or abnormal function of clotting factors VIII/IX in a chain of 12 factors. clotting factor.

Symptoms of hemophilia are bleeding, often appearing when children start to learn to stand and walk, after falls or collisions when learning to walk often appear bleeding under the skin or bleeding lips and tongue.

In children 2 – 3 years old, bleeding in the joints is common with painful swelling, reduced movement of the limbs or leaving sequelae of muscle and joint atrophy because of repeated relapses, fibrosis; The most common bleeding joints are ankle, knee, and elbow joints. The muscles that bleed most often are the calf, thigh, and arm muscles; in which lumbosacral forearm bleeding is common.

If not treated promptly, children can experience complications such as muscle atrophy, stiffness, joint deformity leading to permanent disability. When bleeding in dangerous places such as the brain, neck, mouth, etc., if the bleeding is not stopped in time, the patient may die.

According to Dr. Huong, it is estimated that in Vietnam there are about 6,400 people with hemophilia, but only about 4,000 patients are monitored and treated. At the National Children’s Hospital, about 100 patients under 18 years of age are being monitored and treated, and about 20 new patients are diagnosed every year.

The doctor recommended that if someone in the family has hemophilia, parents should be fully aware of the disease and should go to the doctor for counseling and screening for genetic diseases before marriage and before having children.

“Only need to do a gene test to diagnose disease genes, it is possible to choose for the next generation to be born healthy” – Dr. Huong affirmed, but not all patients know this.