Seizures

When Lydia was born we noticed that she did this funny rhythmic thing with her tongue, she has been doing it since she was a couple days old. As she has become older she has started moving her eyes back and forth at the same time. When she was 3 weeks old one morning after I changed her diaper she turned her head to the side and started suddenly moving her eyes back and forth and moving her tongue in the rhythmic motion. Thinking it might be a seizure i recorded it on my phone. After a minute she came out of it with a surprised look on her face as if she hadn't been aware of anything for the past minute. I called the pediatrician and he had us come in. He watched the video and said it looked like a seizure, then she started having one right there in his office and he sent us to the pediatric ER. They admitted Lydia and monitored her through the night. They put in an IV port to draw some blood to be sure her levels were all normal. She slept through the whole thing and didn't seem bothered by it a bit. She is sure tough.The next morning she had a MRI and EEG done. I was amazed at how well she did with everything. She slept through the EEG which came back normal. She didn't have a seizure during the one hour test so that was expected.  Dr Thalakoti her pediatric neurologist said that about 80% of newborn EEGs come back negative even when the baby clearly has seizures, they have to be timed just right to be very helpful.

  I was concerned that they would sedate her for her MRI.
 After Heath's experience I really didn't want to do that.  When they came in to explain everything and said that they don't sedate newborns at all I was so relieved! All they did was have me feed her just prior, then wrapped her up snug as a bug in this little cozy form. 

 She also wore little stick on headphones to block out the noise like these ones.   I was really impressed with baby friendly they made everything.  She slept comfortably through the whole MRI.

Her MRI came back completely normal and so did her blood work!  So there is no physical reason that can be seen causing the seizures. :)  Dr Thalakoti said she is having what they call benign familial neonatal seizures. So she is just a healthy baby who happens to be having seizures. He said this is fairly common in newborns as they are learning how to adjust to all the stimulation that comes with life. Some kids are just more prone to them. Usually the seizures stop on their own when the baby is about 2-3 months old. He doesn't think we need to medicate her in any way since otherwise she is thriving well. Her oxygen and respiratory levels were good the whole time we were in the hospital, even through seizures. If her seizures increase in frequency or intensity they will reevaluate but for now he is pretty confident she will grow out of them shortly and not have any ill side effects from them.
We are so grateful for the outcome and so blessed to have so much help from friends and family. We sure feel loved.

We got to go home the next afternoon. It was SO good to be back home.

We kept her swaddled as much as possible, and other things to avoid over stimulation. 

Lydia continued to have seizures every couple days for about a week. Then she went a whole week without one. She had her last one when she was 7 weeks old and hasn't had one since. She is now 3 months old and doing wonderfully!