Yale Fetal Stroke Study

Fetal stroke can be a cause of developmental delay and cerebral palsy. It occurs between the fourteenth week of pregnancy and the onset of labor resulting in delivery. Doctors believe that fetal stroke may be caused by at least two things. The unborn baby’s brain may not receive enough blood and a stroke may occur. Alternatively, there may be a clot or bleeding into the unborn baby’s brain.

Doctors believe that fetal stroke is a rare condition. Pregnant mothers usually do not know when their unborn baby has had a stroke. Obstetricians can find fetal stroke by an ultrasound, but the best way to make this diagnosis is by a magnetic resonance image (MRI) scan of the unborn baby’s brain. Since doctors do not know how many infants have had a stroke before they were born, it is difficult for them to predict the developmental outcome of infants with fetal stroke.

The Yale Fetal Stroke Study is committed to finding the causes of fetal stroke and determining the developmental outcome of infants with this problem. We provide MRI scans of unborn babies with suspected stroke and of the infants after they are born. In addition, all infants receive developmental testing until they are three years old.