Fetal-Neonatal Neurology Program | Conditions We Treat

In our Fetal-Neonatal Neurology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, we provide comprehensive care for babies who experienced a brain injury or have a congenital neurological condition.

We care for children with a variety of conditions, including:

Conditions acquired in utero (before a child is born) — also called congenital (present at birth) conditions.

Brain malformations:

• Holoprosencephaly
• Schizencephaly
• Lissencephaly
• Pachygyria
• Polymicrogyria
• Periventricular nodular heterotopia
• Other migrational disorders
• Focal cortical dysplasias
• Chiari malformations, types I and II (spina bifida)
• Agenesis or dysgenesis of the corpus callosum
• Dandy-Walker malformation and other malformations of the posterior fossa
• Congenital hydrocephalus, e.g., due to aqueductal stenosis

Congenital infections:

• Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection
• Congenital toxoplasmosis
• Congenital herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection
• Congenital rubella syndrome
• Other congenital infections, such as:
  • Syphilis
  • Varicella syndrome (chickenpox)
  • Mumps
  • Fifth disease (parvovirus B19)
  • HIV
• Hydrocephalus, ventriculomegaly
• Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH)

Conditions acquired by newborns and young infants:

• Hypoxic-ischemic brain injury
• Newborn seizures
• Newborn stroke
• Hyperbilirubinemia affecting the brain
• Hemorrhage (bleeding) in the brain
• Germinal matrix hemorrhage (GMH), intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH)
• Hydrocephalus, including posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus, benign external hydrocephalus
• Meningitis
• Encephalitis
• Periventricular leukomalacia or white matter injury
• Brachial plexus palsy (Erb’s palsy)
• Neurological follow-up of children who receive ECMO

Neurological symptoms or signs in newborns or young infants:

• Seizures
• Microcephaly
• Macrocephaly
• Plagiocephaly
• Torticollis
• Spasticity, hypertonia
• Dystonia
• Hypotonia
• Quadriparesis, hemiparesis, diparesis
• Visual problems, abnormal eye movements