baby with spastic quad cp

Hi my son has spastic quad CP, it's also worse on one side than the other like son. How old is your son? My son is now almost 5.

Curled fingers are a sign of increased tone - my son was very fisty, and his index fingers were curled inwards almost constantly as a baby, even when his hands were open(ish) to grab at toys. Does he pass toys from hand to hand? And does he cross the midline to reach for toys?

Hiya

Our little boy Tom is almost 3 and had spastic CP affecting all 4 limbs. Your son sounds like he is doing really well - good head control, good limb movement, doing well playing on his tummy - these are all really positive. My son didn't find lifting his head easy to start with but he was always able to bring his hands together and cross the midline although his hands were always so fisty that we would have to pull his fingers open to get anything in them.

Our son is also cognitively unaffected as it sounds like your little one is. Tom's speech is great, he's developing normally in his cognitive functions and is attending a mainstream playgroup with his twin sister. Physically though, he is still unable to sit unaided for long without falling over, he can't crawl yet and he cannot stand or walk unaided. It sounds terrible but I promise you, he's really happy, motivated, funny and tells me he doesn't mind that he has Cerebral Palsy - he says 'Don't worry mummy, I'm alright'! Whatever challenges your son faces you will pull together and face them together - a positive mental attitude goes a long way to helping you through and celebrating all the little steps rather than concentrating on all the things he may not yet be able to do.

I wish you lots of luck and hope that whatever difficulties your son has they are mild. Tom was undiagnosed until he was 1 - the doctors told us he had colic - so we had no way of understanding the difficulties we could see he was having. Because you do know that there is likely to be problems you will be in a better position than we were to spot difficulties early on and get help. I recommend conductive Education very highly and this is something you can start doing relatively soon to help your little one work on his areas of difficulty - plus its good fun, a good place to meet other families in similar circumstances and give your little man a circle of friends who have the same sorts of physical difficulties. Scope has a list of providers and usually sessions are free.

Maria xx

Tracey

Sounds like the little man is going great guns! I would say that only being a couple of months behind is a really good sign that things are looking much more positive for him.

I watch Tom sleeping to see his arms relax - its so lovely to see him so free.

Maria xx

Sam, that's how Tom was. He was in pain due to spasms in his tummy ALL the time. He swallowed loads of air when he fed, either from me or from a bottle and HOWLED all day and all night. It was so distressing. It took a thickener in his milk to slow the milk flow down so he could control the flow better to help him get past that stage and he's a really happy, clever, smart and funny boy now. I waited ages for smiles, eye contact etc but when they came they were so worth the wait. Thinking of you Sam - I can still get cold sweats thinking about how hard those early days were. It was made even harder by the fact I also had to be mum to his twin too - I frequently prayed that I would grow and extra pair of hands!
Maria xx