Indian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Research 2021;8(4):572–576
Content available at: https://www.ipinnovative.com/open-access-journals
Indian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Research
Journal homepage: www.ijogr.org
Case Report
Pregnancy following Brown-Séquard syndrome: A rare case report
Shree Bharathi
1,
*, Niveditha Jha
1
, Sasirekha Rengaraj
1
, Veena Ranjan
1
1
Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, India
ARTICLE INFO
Article history:
Received 16-06-2021
Accepted 02-09-2021
Available online 26-11-2021
Keywords:
Brown-Séquard syndrome
Case report
Hemicord myelitis
Hemiparesis
Pregnancy
ABSTRACT
Brown-Séquard syndrome is an incomplete spinal cord lesion characterized by hemisection injury of the
cord. We present a case of pregnancy, delivery and postpartum course following this rare neurological
condition. A 42-year-old woman presented with past history of idiopathic hemicord myelitis leading to right
sided hemiplegia with decreased contralateral sensation of pain and temperature, consistent with Brown-
Séquard syndrome, which was treated with steroids and Therapeutic Plasma Exchange. Thereafter, she
had near-complete motor recovery and complete sensory recovery over the next 3months. Three years
later, she presented to us at 37+2 weeks of gestation with residual hemiparesis with motor power grade
of 4/5 in right upper and lower limbs. She underwent Caesarean section for breech presentation, which
was done under general anaesthesia in view of prior spinal cord lesion. She was discharged for follow-up
in Neurology outpatient clinic and physical rehabilitation. At follow up after 12 months of delivery, she
had complete motor and sensory recovery. Management of spinal cord lesions in pregnancy and delivery
requires specialist multidisciplinary care due to risk of medical and obstetric complications. This case
demonstrates a rare scenario of a primigravida at term gestation with residual deficits of a past spinal cord
lesion.
This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon
the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under
the identical terms.
For reprints contact: reprint@ipinnovative.com
1. Introduction
Women with spinal cord lesions pose unique challenges
during pregnancy. Improved rehabilitative care and
advent of assisted reproductive techniques has increased
the number of such patients presenting for obstetric
care. Depending on the completeness of the spinal
cord lesions, these patients maybe at higher risk for
medical complications like urinary tract infections, venous
thrombosis, pressure sores and autonomic dysreflexia (AD)
and obstetric complications like preterm labour and higher
rate of caesarean section.
1,2
Brown-Séquard syndrome is an incomplete spinal cord
lesion resulting from hemisection of the spinal cord.
It presents with varying severity of ipsilateral motor
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: livelife.sb@gmail.com (S. Bharathi).
weakness and loss of pain and temperature sensation on the
contralateral side.
3
As it is a rare entity, there is very limited
literature on management of patients with Brown Sequard
syndrome in pregnancy with only 2 such cases reported so
far.
4,5
We report a case of a 42-year-old woman at 37+2
weeks of pregnancy with residual hemiparesis from
a nontraumatic Brown Sequard syndrome which had
occurred 3 years ago. The patient underwent caesarean
section in view of breech presentation and had an
uneventful course in the hospital. She was advised postnatal
thromboprophylaxis and outpatient Neurology follow-up
with physical rehabilitation.
https://doi.org/10.18231/j.ijogr.2021.117
2394-2746/© 2021 Innovative Publication, All rights reserved. 572