Kids indulge in different activities and play almost all day round. Getting bruises, cuts or wounds is quite expected and normal. However, there are some kids who can not easily recover from even the basic wounds. The reason behind this could be hemophilia. The question now arises, What is hemophilia? It is a disorder related to the clotting process. To understand this, one must first understand how clotting takes place. Whenever, there is a cut on the body, the platelets get released and fill up the wound. This also activates proteins known as clotting factors, which are vital in the process of clotting. Blood contains twelve such factors, denoted by roman numerals from I-XII. However, not every person has all the twelve factors. Some people witness deficiency of clotting factors VIII, while some lack in clotting factor IX. The ones who have deficiency of factor VIII suffer from hemophilia A, while the ones having lack of IX factor suffer from hemophilia B. most of the people are diagnosed with hemophilia A. Symptoms While the signs and symptoms of this bleeding disorder depend on the amount of deficiency, if the extent of bleeding is severe, babies may even witness bruises while crawling. The bruises might develop at stomach, back or even chest. This could give painful sensations to the child due to which child may not even feel like walking. In most of the cases, bleeding happens in joints and muscles , which if goes recurrent can cause damage to the joints. There are other signs as well that could help parents to know that the child is suffering from a bleeding disorder. Some of these signs are: 1. frequent cases of bleeding nose. 2. occurrence of blood in the urine. 3. excessive bleeding after tooth extraction or some other surgery Diagnosis In many cases, children are diagnosed with hemophilia in the first six months of life. This is because it is difficult for them to sustain any injury that could cause bleeding. However, if the disorder is diagnosed at a later period of time, it is usually done using: 1. Doctor may look out for certain pattern of bruises. For instance, if the bleeding always occurs into the joint, it could be a sign of hemophilia. 2. It can also be diagnosed with the help of blood tests, such as CBC: Complete Blood Count. Once diagnosed, the treatment of this disorder lies in infusing the deficient clotting factor into the body of the patient.
Related Articles -
What Is Hemophilia, Bleeding Disorders,
|