Birth trauma / defect mystery

[Alexandra K]

I realize this might be a difficult question to answer, but I am desperate for any input and / or experience from the community. My sister is 39 and lives in Europe. She has had three pregnancy losses; the first two were terminated at 12 weeks due to anencephaly and down's. The last miscarriage was after just a couple of weeks. When she got pregnant again, she had been pregnant four times in a year. This pregnancy seemed to be going well. First trimester screening looked fine so she didn't do an amnio. Baby grew a bit slowly the last two months but other than that all looked normal. She was induced at week 41, at her own request; she'd been ery depressed and worried the entire pregnancy and was possibly taking medications to keep herself calm. The first 30 hour induction attempt did nothing; they took a long break and then started up again. After 12 hours, her son was born vaginally. He had been moving a lot in her womb, but when he came out, he just went limp. He was breathing okay but had no moro reflex, no sucking reflex, no grasping reflex, and was very tired. He was kept in the NICU for days, fed with tube. He is now a week and a half and the doctor's have run all sorts of tests (still waiting for some blood work) but cannot figure out what's wrong. The baby doesn't move at all in his sleep, just lies limp. He only moves a little when awake. His grasp is weak, he cannot suck much, and only opened his mouth at 3 days old. He cannot scream. He can see and hear and heart and lungs are fine. They have run a EEG test and it appears his nerves are fine. We are all very worried about a brain injury but the most mysterious thing is that he moved so much in her belly and now not at all. The actual delivery wasn't traumatic, from what I've heard. After all my sister has been through (she was told her egg reserve is so low she'll never have any more children) it is very hard to contemplate that she'll have a child with a severe handicap. She loves her son, but this has been much trying times for our family. Thank you for your response.

[cat13]

I don't have any advice to give, but I couldn't read without posting to give you support.

I hope they find out what's going on with your nephew so he and your sister can be home together soon.