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Spina bifida, in the United States, has become a less frequent complication among newborn children. For some children, however, the complication may arise out of a genetic disorder rather than a congenital complication. Commonly linked to a condition know n as Arnold-Chiari malformation, a genetic disorder, spina bifida can lead to life altering complications in a newborn. While many children with spina bifida are believed to suffer from complications that developed during the first trimester of pregnancy, the cause and origin of such complication is often not fully known.

If you are the parent to a child born with spina bifida, it is important to understand and become involved in the variety of diagnostic tests that will be done to ensure your child is given the best possible healthcare. As part of this diagnostic process, an MRI should be done to ascertain the exact type of brain complications your child may suffer from. Upon MRI examination, children who suffer from spina bifida secondary to Arnold-Chiari malformation will exhibit complications at the base of the skull with the brain matter seemingly falling into the spinal column. With this complication, the symptoms of Arnold-Chiari malformation usually correlate with the complication including extreme headache pain, localized to the neck and base of the head, radiating upward. Often, the headache associated with Arnold-Chiari malformation is mistakenly diagnosed as a migraine but, in younger children, especially newborns, this chronic pain is commonly mistake for spina bifida related pain.

In addition to headache pain, children who suffer from Arnold-Chiari malformation may also complain of an increased incidence of neck and arm pain. This pain will radiate from the neck and into the arms, often affecting the hands. When these symptoms present, the pain is often misdiagnosed, again, as that related to the spina bifida, including the shunt, and not related to the compression of the brain matter against the base of the skull. When headache pain, neck pain and arm pain are persistent, and then a complication of swallowing becomes more complex, it is at this point that your child should be assessed for Arnold-Chiari malformation as the complication may be more than a case of spina bifida. As the condition progresses, complications involving vision and blind spots are quite common and as the child's brain and skull advance in size, the spina bifida, and associated shunt, may be more difficult to manage.

Once diagnosed with Arnold-Chiari malformation, the treatment plan will usually involve a surgical procedure to alleviate the pressure off of the spinal column, thus alleviating the neck, arm and headache pain. In this procedure, so as to protect the brain matter, a small part of the bottom of the skull is surgically removed, allowing for more room to expand the brain tissue. This, of course, will need to correlate with any surgical repair of the spina bifida, including shunt placement.

For chilren who are diagnosed with Arnold-Chiari malformation early in life, the recovery prognosis is very good when, and if, the condition is diagnosed at the onset of symptoms and when spina bifida is first recognized. With prolonged diagnosis and treatment, often, the complications may result in permanent nerve damage, leading to loss of vision, difficulties with swallowing and impaired mobility thus creating a greater complication in a spina bifida child that may have been prevented to some extent.