Has a baby every been in a coma and woken up years later?

[jnmoore02]

has there been a case where a baby been in a coma and woken up years later. if so, did the baby function as normal or did it have defects? Just curious?

[Jolie, BSN]

I am curious as to why you would ask such a question. Do you know of a family with a gravely-ill infant?

It is difficult to answer your question without knowing more of the circumstances, but my short answer is "no".

My experience is in NICU, where we occasionally care for babies who have experienced devastating neurological conditions related to lack of oxygen prior to or during the birth process, babies who have experienced severe intracranial hemorrhaging, and babies born with neurological abnormalities. Some of these babies do not survive to be discharged. Those who go home are likely to require substantial life-long care to support their needs, including apnea monitoring, airway management, temperature regulation, feeding, PT, OT, developmental care.

I am not familiar with any cases in which an infant "awoke" from a coma, but if it were to happen, it would not be likely that they baby would "function as normal", not having had the opportunity to gain physical or developmental skills.

I wish you well.

[jnmoore02]

thank you for your reply. I have no experience at all in nursing. I will be starting the ADN RN program this august. I was just curious because I happen to be watching DiscoveryHealth channel and the idea just came to my head. I too think that if a baby would awake in a coma, there would be some cognitive/motor skills disability.

[Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN]

Even if the baby did wake up many years later, it probably wouldn't be normal. There is a lot of brain development that happens during infancy in childhood. If a child doesn't get the right mental stimulation during that time, they miss it and they can never get it later on.

There also important social and psychological development that happens as well. I don't know if you've studied Eriskon or Maslow yet, but there is a lot of stuff that has to happen with babies. If a baby was in a coma, it wouldn't be getting the social learning it needs. For example, babies who don't bond with a caretaker never learn to trust others and can never have normal relationships as an adult.

Stuff like that.

So the simple answer is no.

[Mommy TeleRN, RN]

Very thought provoking question!

[jnmoore02]

Erikson and Maslow, is that the study on the baby chimpanze? I do understand that withen the first few months of a babies new life is usually the most critical part. I was just so curious about this. Do you think if the baby woke up 2 years later it would have a 2 year old physical atribute but a new born mentality or would the baby brain just not grow since there's no stimulation?

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

It's brain would not only not grow, it would degenerate, just like the physical body degenerates when you don't exercise it. So there would be a lot of problems for the infant to overcome, along with whatever problem put them in a coma in the first place.

[Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN]

Erickson was a psychologist who specialized in human development. He came up with a model for developmental stages that humans experience as they go through life. He discussed how there is conflict with each stage, and what happens if the person resolves the conflict or if it remains unresolved. You will learn more about this in fundamentals.

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/erikson.stages.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who developed a way of prioritizing human needs and the idea that a person cannot progress to the next level of human development until all of their needs are met on a particular level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow

http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html

As for brain development, in infancy the brain is growing rapidly and new neurons and brain pathways are forming. This allows the baby to learn new skills - things such as eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills, and so on. A baby only has a window of time to develop these skills because the neural pathways disappear but the learned movement or behavior remains. If the baby does not learn them while the neural pathways are there, they can never learn them later because the neural pathways are gone. You will learn more about this in anatomy and physiology, and then again when you study the pediatric portion of nursing.

Here is a link that has lots of other links to explain brain development in babies.

http://www.nccic.org/poptopics/brain.html

Then there are lots of social skills and needs that a baby must learn as infant. If the baby wakes up at, say, 2 years old, that baby may never understand the nuances of human interaction and communication. In studies where infants had been deprived of human contact (for example in an orphanage or other institution) the children are never fully able to interact normally with others.

A more recent example of this is Romanian orphans being adopted by American families who never learn social skills.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6089477

http://www.center4familydevelop.com/helpromanian.htm